My Second Tornado Scare
Photo by Nikolas Noonan
We had been transferred to the Midwest because my husband accepted a new position with the company he’d been with for five years.
“It’s a golden opportunity!” he kept saying, as if he needed to convince me, knowing I wasn’t thrilled to be moving to a place in the middle of our nation’s farm belt.
That was because the town I’d never heard of was merely a tiny dot on the map where the closest city was two and a half hours away. But, since I had moved around with my dad’s transfers through my school years, I knew that for some companies moving where needed was how employees with ambition got ahead.
I figured this move would be one of many for us as Harold climbed the ladder to get from manufacturing to management. And just because this was not an ideal place to live, in my mind, I knew that someone had to get the bastard jobs, which was usually the guy at the bottom who wanted to prove him or herself as being ready, willing, and able.
So, we had a moving company pack our household stuff to be delivered to us as soon as we found a house suitable for our family of six: seven-year-old Tina, five-year-old twins Molly and Marty, our cat Charlie, Harold, and me. Then we drove from the mountains of Colorado to the wheatfields of Iowa.
We were set up to stay as long as needed at the new Holiday Inn on the highway outside of our new town, which, we happily found out, had a population of around 17,000, instead of the tiny town I’d expected. That meant there likely was a Kmart and a MacDonalds to appease the kids, and possibly some finer dining for special occasions and some dress shops for me. We’d check things out soon. I was feeling happier.
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As we began to unpack the station wagon mid-afternoon, we couldn’t help but notice how dark the sky was getting and how the black clouds were roiling around looking very threatening. I felt a shiver of fear. I’d seen those roils before.
“We’d better hurry and get inside soon,” Harold said as he pointed toward the angry-looking heavens with the distinct promise of a downpour, or worse, I thought, as he added, “Before we get drenched along with the luggage.” Then we all grabbed as much as we could carry and hurried inside.
Marty had smuggled Charlie into the room wrapped inside his jacket. Pets were not allowed in the rooms, and Harold had wanted to comply with the rules, thinking the cat should stay in the back end of the car in its carrier. But the rest of the family made a fuss and vetoed his urging. He relented, with the stipulation that Charley was to be left in the bathroom with his litterbox and always taken with us when we left in the car. All would be good until Marty started sneaking the cat into his bed at night, I visualized with a smile.
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The room had two full-sized beds plus a sofa, where Marty and the cat would sleep. There was also a chest of drawers, and everyone had at least one drawer to use, which made the space comfortable enough for the short while we’d be there.
We were putting our things away and talking about what we wanted to do for supper when the phone rang.
We all stopped and stared at the ringing box as if it were a time bomb that signaled an explosion since no one knew we were there. Who would be calling?
Photo by Raychel Sanner
Harold picked up the phone and said, “Hello.” Then, “What?” with wide eyes and an open mouth of concern. “Are we really in danger?” We all awaited his next words, which were, “Okay, we’ll be right there.”
My heart lurched and my stomach started churning when he told us, “There’s a tornado warning out and they want us to go to the lower level for safety. We need to hurry because we have to stop by the desk first to let them know who we are so that they can check us off the list and then someone will take us below. Let’s go!”
“I’ll take Charlie,” Marty said as he hugged the cat.
“No! No Charlie. We can’t take him, since he isn’t even supposed to be here. We’ll get kicked out. He has to stay in the room.”
The three kids started to yell in protest and then began to cry. They didn’t want their precious pet to blow away with a tornado.
“Sorry, kids, but that’s the way it has to be. Put him in the bathroom near his litter box where it’ll be a little safer and close the door. He’ll be okay. You’ll see.”
The phone rang again. It was the desk, panicky from us not getting there fast enough.
“We gotta go. Now!” Harold commanded and we dashed out the door.
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We could hear the distant sirens as we ran down the hall to the front desk where we were marked off the list. We were then taken to a door that led to a large conference room below the main level where a group had already gathered.
I saw that there was a refrigerator and a supply of water, just in case, I figured, not feeling very confident about our chances of survival. I was trembling and my heart was pounding as I remembered another tornado that hit the town we lived in when I was just a teenager.
It was a monster that took out a whole swath of the town and killed a few folks because no one actually believed a tornado would hit their town located between two rivers. Tornados didn’t cross rivers, it was believed. But the huge funnel did cross the rivers and did hit the town and it was a tragedy many never got over. Including me. That experience left me with an unnatural fear of dark clouds, and what they might spawn, ever since. Even though I hadn’t known anyone who had been killed in that storm, I was forever terrified of the possibility of having one come my way. And on this afternoon my heart was pounding with that same fear as we awaited our fate.
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The sudden fatalistic sound of a huge train engine coming at us made the building shake and made me want to throw up from the terror that overwhelmed me.
People began to scream and hold their hands over their ears. Our kids asked, “What’s that sound, Dad?” and “I’m scared, Mommy!” and “What about Charlie?”
I could hardly breathe from the fear I felt, but I knew I had to be strong for the kids. I didn’t want to show my inner anxieties, as that would just upset them more. Yet, my reality was that I wanted to scream and head for a corner with my hands over my ears. But I didn’t do any of that. I couldn’t. I had to wait and affect a calm façade that I didn’t feel and hold the kids to my side while I gave them false hopes of all being okay.
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As I doled out those platitudes of hope, I realized that maybe I could believe my words. I began to feel a sense of calm come over me. All would be well, I told myself as I held onto my children. And my whole being began to fill with that certainty of the ordeal being over soon and we’d be all right…until we heard a horrible crash with the sound of glass breaking and then the lights went out. Oh, my God! I thought as my lurching stomach returned.
There was a collective gasp heard around the room and my kids started crying. I wanted to cry, too, but knew that would be the worst thing to do since the kids needed my strength to get through this…if, indeed, we did get through it, I determined.
Positive attitude! I reminded myself and took a deep breath. I closed my eyes for a few seconds trying to think of a positive mantra to boost that attitude into reality, and couldn’t think of a thing, so I began humming “oms” of meditation in my mind. My stomach was doing flip-flops and bile was creeping up my throat as the fear came back with a vengeance. I was about to lose it.
Photo by NOAA
But then, what d’ya know? The lights came back on, the noise we’d been hearing stopped, and everyone, including me, let out a huge sigh of relief — at least it sounded like a giant ‘whoosh’. There were a few cheers from some more exuberant souls, and we all stood at once.
The staff of the hotel seemed visibly in a state of shock over the experience, which wasn’t a surprise since everyone else looked to be pretty shaken as well. But one of the desk clerks finally got it together and said, “Everyone stay in place, please, while we go check upstairs to see what the crash was about and see if it’s safe,” and then the three staff members reluctantly left the room.
Marty whispered, “Do you think Charlie’s okay, Mom?”
I felt certain enough to be able to tell him, “Yes, I think he’s fine.”
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As it turned out, the crash we’d heard was from a massive tree branch that had been broken and blown into one of the large plate-glass windows, but otherwise, there was no other visible damage to the hotel or our vehicles, which were parked behind the building out of harm’s way. There were lots of tree branches laying around from the tree-lined driveway that looked less green, but the bigger tree in front was missing a vital part of itself and was nearly denuded. I felt bad for the beautiful tree but thought it would come out okay with a bit of pruning. And the high-cost, broken window would likely be covered by insurance.
The tornado caught the edge of the property but managed to miss the building as it turned to cut a swath of destruction into that end of town, but there were no casualties. Thank goodness for that. I realized that people took tornado warnings seriously in that part of the flatlands and were prepared for such occurrences.
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I would forever feel the fear creep into my gut when I heard sirens blasting the warning to ‘take cover’ even if nothing happened. But then I figured that it was better to feel fear and head for safety than to be blasé with a false sense of security and end up dead, like in that other town where I lived so many years ago.