Now begins the season of fear. From now until fall, whenever it storms, I will not be able to take an easy breath, especially at night. No matter how rational I am at other times, this is the time when I revert to a primitive, superstitious way of thinking. I cannot help myself.
During the day I have some defense, but at night I have none. For I cannot see what is coming. When the siren goes off, I hold my breath until it dips down again. That means fire. It's when it doesn't dip down and come back up, but stays steady, that makes my heart stop. That is the sound that means only one thing: TORNADO!
I can date the precise time when my tornado phobia began: Palm Sunday, April 11, 1965, one of the biggest tornado outbreaks to hit the Midwest. It was also the day of my First Communion. Catholics believe that the consecrated bread and wine is actually the Body and Blood of Christ, so this was a very important day in my life--or was supposed to be. It's the Catholic equivalent of asking Jesus to come into your life, only even more so, because you are receiving Him physically as well as mentally. I bring this up to show how religion and storms have been intermingled in my life ever since. Sometimes I wonder about that, whether there really is Someone or Something out there. Or was it simply coincidence that the day of my First Communion was the day of one of the biggest tornado outbreaks to hit the Midwest. Google Palm Sunday Outbreak and you will get the whole story.
That day dawned as the perfect spring day. No hint of what was to happen that evening. I don't remember the Mass, I don't remember anything about that day. But that night! Boiling black clouds rolling in like endless streams of bombers from the southwest and the sky a garish mud yellow. I remember Dad yelling something about the big basswood in the front yard starting to bend over and hustling us down to the basement. Later we learned a funnel cloud had gone over the house and touched down in a trailer park to the north. What is it about tornadoes and trailer parks?
So here I am several decades later and living in a trailer park that has no shelter. Something I swore I'd never do. Never say never. You'd better believe I pay close attention to what is going on in the sky.
I finally confronted my nightmare on September 13, 2008. A freak EF-1 spun up from the remnant rain bands of a hurricane (yes, we do get hurricane remnants in Michigan). It was very unusual weather, alternately rainy and gusty, and chilly. Now if there is one thing I do know, it is tornado weather. This was not tornado weather. There were no watches issued. I needed to do laundry. Now normally I usually go to the laundromat in the morning, but because of the rain, I decided to wait to see if it would ease up a bit, and that is why I went in the afternoon. The laundromat is in a nearby town, about five or six miles away. On the way I stopped at the public library to pick up some DVD's to watch later. One of them was "National Geographic's Tornado Intercept." Little did I know that Doppler radar was picking up some rotation in the storm to the west and that soon I would be starring in my own version of "Tornado Intercept."
So I am doing my laundry when I hear the familiar warning tones of a weather announcement come over the radio followed by the dreaded words "tornado warning." Huh? Then the siren went off in that long unwavering tone. The tornado was about 15 minutes away, the radio said. I went out and looked and did not see anything but gray featureless sky. (I had taken Skywarn training prior to this, so I had a pretty good idea what to look for.) The minutes ticked on. There was a rumble of thunder. Then it started raining--hard, like being in a car wash. Everyone in the laundromat commented about the rain. Incredibly, everyone was still doing their laundry instead of taking shelter.
When the rain stopped, I went out again with two other people from the laundromat. To the north the clouds were misty, curtain-like but overhead they were angry, black and boiling. The men were concerned about the north but I said, no, that is not where it is. Just then a gust of wind struck us in the back and a rumbling like a freight train started up from the direction of the old railroad tracks. But they tore the tracks out years ago, I thought as we all turned towards the sound; there's no train--"Here it comes!" shouted one of the men, and through the trees we saw a spinning, twisting column of transparent smoke. It didn't look frightening at all. It looked just like one of the dust devils I'd seen in the New Mexico desert. And I'm going, "this, this is what I have been so afraid of? This is nothing but an overgrown dust devil!" But we ran into the laundromat and told everyone to take cover. By that time, however, it had gone past and dissipated a mile or so up the road, only to spin down again two counties away.
In some respects, according to the meteorologist who spoke at today's Skywarn training session, this was a typical weak Michigan tornado, but in other respects, it was not. We have been very lucky here in Michigan that we have not had any big outbreaks since 1977. There was an isolated F3 that tore through a nearby city in 1980, but no big outbreaks like the one recently in Indiana. But the weather is changing . . . and so the season of fear begins.
During the day I have some defense, but at night I have none. For I cannot see what is coming. When the siren goes off, I hold my breath until it dips down again. That means fire. It's when it doesn't dip down and come back up, but stays steady, that makes my heart stop. That is the sound that means only one thing: TORNADO!
I can date the precise time when my tornado phobia began: Palm Sunday, April 11, 1965, one of the biggest tornado outbreaks to hit the Midwest. It was also the day of my First Communion. Catholics believe that the consecrated bread and wine is actually the Body and Blood of Christ, so this was a very important day in my life--or was supposed to be. It's the Catholic equivalent of asking Jesus to come into your life, only even more so, because you are receiving Him physically as well as mentally. I bring this up to show how religion and storms have been intermingled in my life ever since. Sometimes I wonder about that, whether there really is Someone or Something out there. Or was it simply coincidence that the day of my First Communion was the day of one of the biggest tornado outbreaks to hit the Midwest. Google Palm Sunday Outbreak and you will get the whole story.
That day dawned as the perfect spring day. No hint of what was to happen that evening. I don't remember the Mass, I don't remember anything about that day. But that night! Boiling black clouds rolling in like endless streams of bombers from the southwest and the sky a garish mud yellow. I remember Dad yelling something about the big basswood in the front yard starting to bend over and hustling us down to the basement. Later we learned a funnel cloud had gone over the house and touched down in a trailer park to the north. What is it about tornadoes and trailer parks?
So here I am several decades later and living in a trailer park that has no shelter. Something I swore I'd never do. Never say never. You'd better believe I pay close attention to what is going on in the sky.
I finally confronted my nightmare on September 13, 2008. A freak EF-1 spun up from the remnant rain bands of a hurricane (yes, we do get hurricane remnants in Michigan). It was very unusual weather, alternately rainy and gusty, and chilly. Now if there is one thing I do know, it is tornado weather. This was not tornado weather. There were no watches issued. I needed to do laundry. Now normally I usually go to the laundromat in the morning, but because of the rain, I decided to wait to see if it would ease up a bit, and that is why I went in the afternoon. The laundromat is in a nearby town, about five or six miles away. On the way I stopped at the public library to pick up some DVD's to watch later. One of them was "National Geographic's Tornado Intercept." Little did I know that Doppler radar was picking up some rotation in the storm to the west and that soon I would be starring in my own version of "Tornado Intercept."
So I am doing my laundry when I hear the familiar warning tones of a weather announcement come over the radio followed by the dreaded words "tornado warning." Huh? Then the siren went off in that long unwavering tone. The tornado was about 15 minutes away, the radio said. I went out and looked and did not see anything but gray featureless sky. (I had taken Skywarn training prior to this, so I had a pretty good idea what to look for.) The minutes ticked on. There was a rumble of thunder. Then it started raining--hard, like being in a car wash. Everyone in the laundromat commented about the rain. Incredibly, everyone was still doing their laundry instead of taking shelter.
When the rain stopped, I went out again with two other people from the laundromat. To the north the clouds were misty, curtain-like but overhead they were angry, black and boiling. The men were concerned about the north but I said, no, that is not where it is. Just then a gust of wind struck us in the back and a rumbling like a freight train started up from the direction of the old railroad tracks. But they tore the tracks out years ago, I thought as we all turned towards the sound; there's no train--"Here it comes!" shouted one of the men, and through the trees we saw a spinning, twisting column of transparent smoke. It didn't look frightening at all. It looked just like one of the dust devils I'd seen in the New Mexico desert. And I'm going, "this, this is what I have been so afraid of? This is nothing but an overgrown dust devil!" But we ran into the laundromat and told everyone to take cover. By that time, however, it had gone past and dissipated a mile or so up the road, only to spin down again two counties away.
In some respects, according to the meteorologist who spoke at today's Skywarn training session, this was a typical weak Michigan tornado, but in other respects, it was not. We have been very lucky here in Michigan that we have not had any big outbreaks since 1977. There was an isolated F3 that tore through a nearby city in 1980, but no big outbreaks like the one recently in Indiana. But the weather is changing . . . and so the season of fear begins.
