Like The Weather

Around 1:30 AM this morning, Missy and I were woken up by the sound of the nearby TORNADO SIREN...first thing we did was go into the living room and turn on the television to see the weather forecast...Missy gathered up the rabbits and moved them into the hallway...meanwhile, our cat was already hiding deep in the cabinets underneath the kitchen sink - a favorite place of hers to hide in a thunderstorm. I made sure to grab my shoes and my wallet. If worse came to worst, I didn't want to be barefoot and without my ATM card. We waited in the hallway for the storm to pass...I casually left the hallway every now and then to see the weather report and to check Facebook and Twitter to see what everyone else in Athens was doing in preparation for the storm. By 2 AM, the storm passed us, just as the weather report predicted, but we stayed in the hallway an extra 15 minutes "just in case". When the thunder, lightning, and wind subsided, we finally emerged from the hallway. We put the bunnies back in their pens before finally heading back to bed, where we struggled to get a few more hours of sleep before having to get up for work...

In retrospect, we were probably too casual in our tornado preparedness, especially in light of all the survivor stories we've been hearing this evening. Maybe next time the tornado siren sounds, we'll get into the closet that's in our hallway instead of just hanging out in the hallway, and maybe even strap on our bicycle helmets while we were at it; maybe next time, all our important papers and documents will be in the closet with us, along with the first aid kit; maybe next time I'll grab my car keys and backpack along with my wallet; maybe next time I'll actually concentrate on hunkering down, instead of effin' around on the internet trying to get the latest storm reports, etc. etc. etc. Next time, we'll just concentrate on sitting as tight as possible until the storm passes. I can't even imagine what it would be like to live through an actual tornado, and what it would be like to live after it. Knock on wood it never comes to that. But at least we can control how well prepared we can be if it ever came down to that.



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