9:57 a.m. - 2002-11-11
More Tornado
Sorry if I scared anybody last night! It was our first tornado alert in the new house and I wasn't sure where I had put everything. Everything being the cat and rabbit carriers, the mattress, the flashlights, the tiny, battery-operated TV. When we moved in I just wasn't very organised about it.
And Bruce and I have different tornado philosophies. His first move is to turn on the radio and find out where it is, and then freak out if necessary. My first move is to get the animals into the carriers and get the mattress set up, and then find out where the tornado is. The rational behind this is that by the time the sirens go off it could be five minutes away.
Five minutes is not a heck of a lot of time when you're trying to shove four wriggling cats, one of whom weighs twenty pounds and another of whom likes to hide at the furthest area under the sofa, into carriers. Never mind getting the rabbits, who hide behind their cage, thumping, whenever the sirens go off.
Actually they usually start thumping about 15 minutes before the sirens. They're very psychic about these things.
Anyway, as I was rounding up the carriers Bruce announced that it was in New Hope, which is where they usually land in Madison county. It's about 5 or ten miles from us, but we got ready anyway, because tornados are notoriously unpredictable. This is a good tornado house. Even though it has no basement the kitchen is surrounded by other rooms, has several "Plumbing walls" (ie: walls that have pipes going through them which are supposedly sturdier) and has no windows, so it's an excellent place to be.
The sirens stopped after about ten minutes. We stayed in the kitchen about twenty minutes longer, watching the tiny TV, and then went into the living room to watch the bigger TV. Evidently not much damage in New Hope, but an elementary school in another town was blown to bits. Bet there'll be some happy kids in that town - "Hey, no school for the next THREE YEARS!!"
Also watched the progress of yet another tornado in Cullman county. It's creepy - they can actually project where a tornado will be, sometimes down to the street names, and what time the tornado will get there down to the minute. So on the screen will be a list of towns and the time the tornado will hit: New Hope - 6:15, Union Grove - 6:17, Guntersville - 6:21. It's like watching a list of doom.
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