Spring in the South

Growing up in a part of the country that didn't get tornadoes, I wasn't especially fearful of them.  When we moved here, as we were driving into town we had to pull over because a tornado was expected to hit the area we were about to drive through.  I told The Mister that if we hadn't already sold our home in CO, I'd turn around and go back.  After sitting it out, we got back on the road for the final hour of our trip and drove through the aftermath on the way to our new home.  Luckily it hit in an unpopulated area and just took down a lot of trees.  That was May, the end of spring tornado season for that year.

I forgot about tornadoes and settled into life in TN.  Over the next couple years we'd have warnings and watches, I never knew which was which and I'd watch the news but I was the crazy person standing outside looking at the sky.  I think our oldest only sat in our safe place maybe once or twice during those years.

That all changed two years ago on Good Friday.  We were at a friend's house for a playdate, when one of the women got a call from her husband saying we needed to watch the news and a possible tornado was coming.  We loaded all the kids into a bathroom and the moms went out to the porch, two of us carrying babies.  We opened the door and about a mile away was a funnel cloud with debris flying in circles.  It stopped before it reached us, but caused lots of damage and took two people's lives...a mother and her baby.  We had to take all sorts of  alternate routes to get home that day and drove through the hardest hit areas in the days that followed.  That day helped me develop a very solid fear of storms.

Two days ago, the weather guys were mentioning lots of storm activity headed our way.  It rained and thundered all night, I listened for text messages from the National Weather Service and turned the TV on a number of times during the night.  Even with those precautions, the storm caught us a bit off guard.  I was dozing and listening to the weather outside and then all of a sudden the wind was really loud.  Possibly the loudest I've ever heard.  We went running upstairs to get the kids and as we were doing that we heard trees snapping and debris hitting our roof.  It was really scary.  Throughout the morning we heard reports of all the damage in the area, along with reports of more storms to come throughout the day that were possibly going to be worse.  I think the kids were in our powder room/safe area 5 or 6 times.  Our area experienced lots of downed trees and power lines, plus a number of homes and businesses with minor roof and/or structural damage.  It was a long and trying day and by the end of it I was OVER spring storms.

Then I saw the reports coming out of Alabama.  Even though yesterday began with fright and ended with me being worn out and weary, it could have been so much worse.  We're so lucky we just had strong winds.  I'm reminded me to be thankful I was able to spend the day with my family and even though parts of it were scary, it's nothing like what the people in Tuscaloosa experienced.  No one died here.  Comparatively, the damage in minimal.  

I hope we don't spend much more time in our safe place this spring, but I'll gladly take that over the alternative.