tornadoes

i have a fear of storms. i think we've already established that.

it's not really the actual storm that i fear, though. it's what the storm can bring...tornadoes.

storms during the day don't really bother me that much. i can see what's going on. but at night, you can't see anything. which really scares me.

i'm in tennessee and we get our fair share of tornadoes. i mean, it's not as bad as some places, but it's not like we never have them.

i did a little research, and i think it was in 1998 that i officially became terrified of tornadoes. i remember it pretty vividly. it's not like anything tragic happened to me, but it still scared me. a lot.

my dad dropped me off at piano lessons. yes, i didn't lie when i said i used to play the piano. i was practicing and then it started to look really dark outside. of course i started freaking out, and some of the other kids started to get scared too. i called my dad and he said he would come and pick me up. in the middle of the conversation, the phone just cut off. i screamed and thought something bad had happened to him. but he arrived not too long after that and picked me up. he was in rivergate at the target when i called, and he told me later that when he was starting to walk out of the store, someone came on the intercom and told everyone to move to the middle of the store because of the possibility of tornadoes. but he came to get me instead. thanks daddy! {and there were tornadoes that day. they hit rivergate (right down the road from target, but not in the direction of my piano lessons). so my dad went away from the storm when he left to come get me.}

i have many memories of getting into the bathroom or closet at my mom's house during severe weather. of course i was the one insisting on taking cover. i would run upstairs and get my pillows and my bear and climb into the closet or bathroom. there were a few times that i insisted on taking cover at my dad's house too. he would turn the tv up really loud and we would sit at the bottom of the stairs and listen to the news about the storm. i would usually be on the phone with my mom too. it's kind of funny that i can remember this stuff.

but the scariest of them all happened 4 years ago. i was a junior in high school. i don't remember much about that morning, but the afternoon i can remember EVERYTHING about.

i was in my 5th period, which was spanish. we were on the 2nd floor of my high school. i looked out the window and it was getting pretty dark. like black. but some of my friends in the class assured me that everything was fine. it was really weird though, because a lot of people were getting called out of school. their parents saw the severe weather warnings and wanted them to come home. i'm glad i didn't leave because it was probably safer at school than at home, and i would have been all alone at home.

back to the story. ok, so it was black outside. we got out of 5th period and i was walking down the stairs to go to my last class, english. it was right under my spanish class. we were supposed to meet in the library that day, but i thought that we were meeting in the classroom then going to the library. as soon as i got to the bottom of the stairs, someone came over the intercom and yelled "code blue! code blue!". well, no one knew what the hell code blue was. but then we all figured out it was a tornado warning, and we had to get up against the lockers and take cover.

i got with all of my friends that were in the hall with me and we just sat next to each other. i really didn't think it was that big of a deal because 2 of the english teachers (who were also coaches) were standing at the door that went outside to watch the storm. i figured if they were standing there, nothing was coming at us. well, i was wrong.

the big tornado got caught up in the creek that was right by my school and it didn't hit the school. but it did a lot of damage to the houses around the school and the baseball field and clubhouse, and a lot of the cars in the school parking lot were damaged too. a smaller tornado formed over the gym but didn't touch down, but it damaged the roof. and one of the huge windows at the school busted.

scary stuff. but i was totally calm the whole time because those coaches were standing outside.

after the fact, i freaked out. i called my mom and she was ok. i called my dad and he had no clue there was any bad weather. i still shake my head when i think about that. it's kind of funny. i had to tell him about the tornadoes just 20 miles from him. as you can tell from him leaving target when a tornado was coming, he wasn't really concerned.

we had to stay at school until about 4:30 (we usually got out at 3:15). my car was fine, but my high school boyfriend's car was messed up. he actually drove his dad's truck to school that day, and the back window had been hit and as soon as he closed the door, it completely shattered. i think 2 cars were totaled, and some others had busted windows.

when we left, my mom didn't want me to go home. she wasn't home yet and she didn't want me to be home by myself. and i didn't want to be home by myself either. we didn't know if the house had been damaged at all. so i went to my boyfriend's house for a while. his house was 10 minutes from the school, but it took us 45 minutes to get there because there was so much traffic due to the tornadoes.

i went home that night and they were stopping cars on the road outside of my neighborhood to check ids. there had been damage down the road and it was closed, and they didn't want people driving down the road that didn't need to be. well, obviously it was my only way to get home, so i was able to drive down the road. my mom's house was fine, but the power was out. i didn't sleep that whole night because i was scared that another tornado was going to come and i wouldn't know. my boyfriend promised to call me if anything was happening because he had power. and nothing happened.

school was cancelled for at least one day (it may have been more than that) due to the damage.

so now you know the reason behind my fear of storms. sorry it was so long. i'm surprised i was able to remember as much as i did.

as i'm writing this, i'm getting kind of nervous about the storms that are supposed to come tonight and tomorrow. (but you won't actually read this until said tomorrow. so when you're reading this, it will be storming here.) hopefully they won't be tornado producing storms. or else i'll be in the closet.