In light of all that’s happening in Mid-Tennessee…
On May 4th, 2003, the sky shot from gray and blah to green and eerie in a matter of minutes (that kind of change you only see in the Midwest.) My mom was at work; Will, Dad, and I had just been lying around the house, being lazy. We knew we were under a tornado watch, as we had been for the past few days. Once we noticed the sudden change in the sky, we headed down to our walkout basement (the storm shelter was in the back, away from the backyard/walkout part.) My dad flipped on the TV, as that’s always been his main method of news-gathering… at least, ever since TVs became popular and we stopped relying on the weather radio with the creepy jazz music. (Sometime after our entire basement flooded up to the first floor in 1998, WHILE WE WERE UNDER A TORNADO WARNING. Yeah, we had to choose between drowning and being sucked up by a tornado.) So, my dad, being my dad, has the TV on SO FUCKING LOUD that Will and I can barely hear ourselves talk. We’re still in the walkout part of the basement at this point, right next to the floor-to-ceiling windows, because it’s just a watch, not a warning. I’m still staring at the sky thinking… hmm… here’s the wind… here’s the hail… here’s the rain… uhhh… a tornado is going to appear any minute… and all the sudden, I think, hmm… I hear the faint shrill of the tornado sirens.
So, I’m like, “DAD, TURN THE TV DOWN, THE TORNADO SIRENS ARE GOING OFF!” And he’s like, “nah, they are not, it would be on the news if we were now in a warning, and besides, there’s one right next to us… it’s loud.” And once again, I’m like, “DAD, JUST LOOK OUTSIDE. THEY’RE GOING OFF. AND YOU HAVE THE TV UP SO LOUD YOU WOULDN’T BE ABLE TO HEAR IT ANYWAY.” And he STILL doesn’t believe me, at least not until the newscasters and meteorologists say, “alright, we’re going off-air and into shelter, there’s a tornado right next to us.” At which point, my dad JUMPS up, and starts FREAKING out, and is like, “RUN GUYS OMG RUN WE HAVE TO GET INTO THE STORM SHELTER OMG THE TORNADO IS COMING OMG!” like this is the first tornado warning he’s ever been in. Me being the caring, unselfish one, goes, “WAIT, we have to go get the cats so they don’t get sucked up and thrown around and die!” My dad is like, “YOU GO, YOU GO GET THE CATS! THE TORNADO IS COMING! YOU AND WILL GO FIND ALL FOUR OF THEM AND BRING THEM DOWN! GO!”
Hahahaha. We found the cats and didn’t die. In fact, contrary to my memory, apparently the May 4th tornado warning wasn’t even the one that spawned the tornado that destroyed part of Lawrence… it was the May 8th one that did. Both our junior high and the montessori school got ripped apart (for the third time in like, three years… someone hates education!), as well as some houses and the apartment complex that seems to be a magnet for natural disasters. (It’s been hit a few times by tornadoes as well as burned down by being struck by lightning.) I don’t remember the May 8th one being that big of a deal, even though it should’ve been since that one got closer to our house than the May 4th one… I only for certain remember the May 4th one because of my dad missing the sirens and almost killing us and because May 4th, 2003 was my friend’s 12th birthday.
Here’s some snazzy pictures from our newspaper from the May 8th tornado…
(the tornado about to touch down next to our junior high)
(the magnet apartments, plus some homes)
(our governor at the time, now US Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, in front of the apartment complex)
Prayers to the Tennesseans as they battle this flooding. We’re lucky in that most of our flooding only affects downtown Lawrence (where our old house in 1998 was) and don’t have to worry too much about the majority of our businesses having to shut down for months on end. Kansans are pros at dealing with tornadoes and all the cleaning up after… but I doubt dealing with being underwater was on anyone’s radar in Tennessee.
