With all the talk lately of tornadoes in the lower Midwest, I’ve realized that I’ve had two years of tornado-free living. Not only that, but I’ve not even had a tornado warning or watch in those two years.
That is a record. I’ve never lived anywhere that there was more than six months, maximum (and usually less), without a tornado warning or watch, at the very least, or tornadoes touching down nearby.
I am incredibly lucky, and I know it. Contrary to popular belief, this area could very well get a tornado, as was detailed a couple months ago on the weather here by our former meteorologist, who explained that it is unlikely but not, as many believe, impossible.
One of the first times Neal came to visit me when we were dating, tornado sirens started going off in my town. I immediately went into gear, picking up the weather radio, extra batteries, water, and some snacks and getting ready to go to the basement of the building where I lived. (I’m grateful we aren’t prone to tornadoes here since the building we live in is not very well built with tornado shelter in mind.) Since we weren’t sure how long we’d be down there, we also grabbed the laptop, a few movies, and some blankets and headed down.
I always get a pit in my stomach when I hear the sirens, even though I grew up in an area where the sirens were sounded every day and were also known as “the noon whistle.” As a young child, I’d been taught to head for the basement when the sirens sounded, so every day I’d tense up slightly when the whistle sounded. If it were a nice day outside, the tension would only last a few milliseconds, but if it were a stormy day, ripe for storms and tornadoes, I’d wait until I was sure that the noon whistle only lasted one blast of the siren. I’d spent too many hours in a dark, dank, and spidery basement (or cellar, if you’re inclined to call a scary, unfinished basement what it really is) during storms to remain unaffected by the call.
Neal seemed a bit out of his element, as we huddled down in the basement and watched the movie we’d brought on the laptop. I didn’t realize then (and wouldn’t think about it for some time after I’d lived here a while myself) that the area he’d been living in didn’t often have tornadoes touch down nearby. Heck, the whistle here only sounds the first Wednesday of every month, so you don’t even have a chance to “get used” to the sound.
I’ve seen them, I’ve been near them, and I’ve never become used to the effect they have on me when I hear the sirens indicating that there is yet another one (or another group of them) nearby. Looking back on the past two years, I realize that I no longer compulsively watch the news when a bad thunderstorm is going on outside my window. I no longer switch from channel to channel to see if the local news has updates on where the storm is and whether tornadoes have been spotted. I no longer watch the yellow boxes and parallelograms with fear and anxiety, wondering where the tornadoes will decide to hit during this storm.
I still, however, check the news in the counties where friends and family down there still live when I hear of terrible storms coming through their areas. I still think about that time that my close friend’s church was destroyed, while people inside (and a couple outside) huddled down for dear life. I still think about how each of them was alive, even those who were just hanging on to a doorknob outside the main building. I still think about how tornadoes are fickle funnels and how you can never stop having that niggling thought in the back of your mind where, as the thunder shakes your house and rattles your dishes, you wonder if this is the storm that will bring tornadoes back into your immediate life.
It’s not probable, but it’s not impossible. That’s the entire story of my life, to be honest, so I can’t afford to be completely un-vigilant. Every bad storm, the thought will be there even if the immediate outward appearance of compulsive vigilance is no longer prevalent.
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