Nobody’s
a fan of Mother Nature’s wrath, especially when it strikes in the middle of the
night. For the second time in my life,
we had a tornado scare last night / early morning today, at around 1:30 a.m.
By
around 7 in the evening, we had heard that severe weather conditions were going
to hit Middle Tennessee. I kept checking
various weather sites and every single one of them was consistent in saying
that severe thunderstorms were sure to come late at night and that conditions
were ripe for tornadoes to develop.
I’ve
never experienced a tornado in my entire life.
We did not have those in the Philippines
And
yes, it’s not even a room but a closet located
in the middle of our house, under the staircase. Even before we bought this house, we looked
at the floor plan and made up our minds that this room would be our ‘tornado
hideout’. Unfortunately (or
fortunately), with my husband being such a ‘techie’, the said room also became
our ‘server room’ (computer server), further making the space cramped. We realized at 1:45 am earlier today that 2
adults and one child can barely fit in there, especially since we had a huge
down comforter and a couple of pillows with us to cover ourselves with
should the need arise.
 |
| Our 'safe room' with its daily occupants... |
I
was the first one to get up. I just
couldn’t sleep, feeling so paranoid and constantly checking various websites
for weather updates. At first it was
just a tornado watch. Then our county
was included in a tornado warning but it said ‘northwestern part’ so I stayed
calm and thought maybe it won’t hit the eastern part. I continued to stay awake and kept praying
and praying and praying. Then just when
I was beginning to convince myself that the worst is over since it seemed so
calm and quiet outside, I heard the siren.
I lifted my head from the pillow to listen more intently, still in
denial and thinking that it was just an ambulance I was hearing. Then I stood and walked towards the window to
listen some more and tapped my husband in the process to confirm. “Hey, wake up….Isn’t that the tornado siren??” AJ sat up, listened, and then finally said,
“Yup, that’s it”. Quickly I grabbed the
comforter and said, “We better go downstairs NOW…Go grab Noah…”, and we all
headed quickly to the first floor. I
turned on the emergency LED lamp inside the closet/room and threw the comforter
on the floor. AJ put Noah down while I
sat in the corner, while he walked to the adjoining family room to turn on the
television and watch the news updates on the storm. After about 15 minutes, we saw on the screen
that the storm had passed and we were no longer in the red zone. I was finally able to breathe normally and
felt my whole being relax.
Amidst
all the fear and anxiety, there was one question that kept popping in my
head. “What exactly are you so afraid of?...being hurt?...damage to
property?...dying?....losing your loved ones?” After all is said and done, I realized that
the thing I fear most is the last one.
It is the ‘damage’ I could be left with that would surely leave me most
damaged…perhaps even irreparable.
On
the practical side of things, I also realized that there needs to be a second
safe room in case there were more people in the house. I am now thinking of the pantry as my best
bet. Let’s just hope falling canned
goods don’t end up hurting anyone in the process! I guess I need to organize that space now!
How
about you? What is your emergency plan
in your home? Have you been in a similar
situation and have you any tips you want to share?
