We have now survived 2 natural disasters. It wasn’t and hasn’t been easy either time but after getting through it once, I know that we’ll get through it again.
Two weeks ago today we knew there would be some severe weather. We were also aware there would be tornados. As an Okie, this is nothing new. That’s why we have a storm shelter. However, we did NOT know that this tornado would spin out of a storm that had only existed for just a few minutes. That’s almost unheard of.
My sister had called earlier in the day and said she was going to come hang out in case we did have to go to the storm shelter.
My girls were napping so I got in the shower around 2:15. While in the shower it started thundering. It was a thunder that I knew all too well and one that made me uneasy (a constant eerie sounding rumble) so I rushed through my shower. I got out around 2:20 threw on some clothes and headed to the kitchen turning on the TV on my way.
There was a severe storm headed our way that just had some strong winds and hail with it. Pretty typical for this time of year. I started putting up dishes while also keeping my eye on the TV.
Before I knew it, the meteorologists became very concerned about this storm. Not too long after that my sister showed up with her kids and proceeded to take their bags to the shelter. I decided I should probably get some things together for the girls just in case. I believe it was around 2:40pm that the national weather service issued a tornado warning for our area. My sister ran back into the house grabbed our stuff & took her kids to the storm shelter. My girls were still asleep. When she came back in we both ran to the girls room and each snatched up a baby and ran to the storm shelter. I stopped at the end of the hall to grab some shoes for the girls while my sister was yelling at me to forget it and get outside. I was able to grab their shoes and I took off running.
It was hailing pea sized hail and I remember Tillie saying, “Oh! Oh! Oh!”. When we got to the shelter neither one of them wanted to go in. Poor babies didn’t even have time to process what was going on. We got into the shelter, closed the door and surprisingly, I was able to text James. Here are our texts (it’s hard for me to look at these again):
I knew when we were down in that storm shelter that this tornado was worse than the first tornado we had been through back in 1999. Until two weeks ago, the 1999 tornado was the worst in Oklahoma history. Honestly, I was surprised to see our houses still standing. Tomorrow I’ll post about the damages.
So if you noticed the time stamps on the texts, you’ll see that we started heading to the storm shelter around 2:45 ish. The power went out at 3:02 (we know this b/c a clock in my sister’s garage had stopped at 3:02pm) and the tornado hit shortly after that. We came out of the storm shelter around 3:30pm. It all happened SO fast!
I’m not sure what time James got through the road blocks but it seemed like forever. We started collecting a few things, then my mom & dad showed up and we all headed out to get some dinner. Most homes & businesses were without power and water so we had to drive a few miles north to find a place to eat. After that we went to Walmart to get a few essential items. Once we got to my parents house, my best friend and her husband brought us a generator (the tornado barely missed my parents….by 2 blocks, so while they had no damage, they had no power). I think it was around 1 am before we got the girls bathed and into bed and around 3 am before we got to bed.
