Twister Tales

So yesterday we got our first lesson in Tornadoes 101. Luckily, we didn't get hit directly or else we probably would have failed. Although we had known that the Oklahoma-Texas-Arkansas area had a good chance of some tornadoes, it looked like we were on the fringe of the danger area, but around 2 o'clock, the tornado sirens started sounding. Celeste and I were working in the den and immediately turned on the TV. Talk about a great feeling to see your house in the expected path of destruction. At the time, the gigantic spinning cloud was about 10 miles to the south-west of us, but it was projected to head north-east and fly (or possibly touch down) directly in our vicinity. So, we did what any couple of fools from tornado-free Utah would - turned up the volume, grabbed the dog, and headed toward the bathroom.

Once the sirens turned off, we started venturing back into the den to see the live footage about what was going on and the situation was actually worse for us. The cloud had just touched down at Rockwell and NW Expressway, which, according to Google Maps, is about 0.7 miles from our apartment. I decided to look out the window (despite instructions not to by the local weatherman) and saw that it wasn't terribly windy or haily outside, but we were getting a substantial amount of rain.

After the tornado had officially left our area, one of the weatherfolks driving the weather van was attempting to make a U-turn to assess the damage. From the dash camera, we could see our complex. He then turned around and headed toward our local Chuck E. Cheese (0.5 miles away) to show us how the twister took off the entire back of the back of the building.

After feeling a bit relieved, we watched the TV for a little while and watched the coverage of the tornado growing larger and touching down in Edmond - an OKC suburb - and apparently going directly past Champ's daycare. Edmond got hit a lot worse and a lot of homes and buildings were damaged. Just as we were relieved that we didn't get hit by that, the weatherman interrupted and told us that Tornado #2 was headed our way. Talk about fun! I actually think we got more rain and hail from this storm, but the storm never 'tornadoed'.

The rest of the day was pretty boring. We had to stay at home and just kind of hang out; however, this morning as I escorted Celeste outside, I noticed that she had a tire that was completely flat. I don't know if the storm caused it, but luckily the good folks next door at Hibdon Tire fixed it up for us for free - other than the personal cost of wasted time and a crappy scissor-jack. Hopefully things will now be back to normal, but hell it is only February....