It Got a Little Windy Here Friday Night
We had a tornado Friday night. Thank you for the many e-mails asking if we were ok. Yes we are. I was watching the NCAA sweet 16 and caught a blurb about a tornado on the ground about 11 miles south of Clovis moving north at 35 mph. I live about 5 miles south of town so I called the base to see if it was on my side or not. It was. So I got the kids, some water, and the picture albums into the storm shelter. That was when the power went out. We were about two miles away from the funnel at that point.
I walked outside to see if I could see anything but it was too dark. Then it got dead calm. I ran into the house and down into the shelter. We have a great shelter. The people that built the house were apparently afraid of nuclear war so they dug a hole and buried a boxcar (like from a train) and covered it in three feet of concrete. Filtered air vents, water, and gas make it livable for as long as we have food.
Curiosity got the better of me so I walked over to our large picture window to see if I could see it. I know that’s not very bright but my redneck genes took over and I couldn’t stop myself. When the lightning flashed, I couldn’t see the funnel because it was the same color as the clouds. But when it was dark, the city lights back-lit it and we could see it clearly. Yes, I meant we. My kids had joined me. The conversation was something like:
“Get back in the basement. We don’t know for sure where it is. OOOH! Look at that!”
That was when we saw electrical transformers exploding about 4.5 miles away as the funnel hit them. We lost sight of the tornado after that. We’ve spent the next 3 days helping people clean up. The base let us have the day to go help and provided busses to get down there. About 450 people went. Every church in town is also helping. This town has always come together in a crisis and this is no exception. It’s going to take a while to return to normal though. The good news is that there was only one fatality, a 90 year woman trapped in her trailer.
I walked outside to see if I could see anything but it was too dark. Then it got dead calm. I ran into the house and down into the shelter. We have a great shelter. The people that built the house were apparently afraid of nuclear war so they dug a hole and buried a boxcar (like from a train) and covered it in three feet of concrete. Filtered air vents, water, and gas make it livable for as long as we have food.
Curiosity got the better of me so I walked over to our large picture window to see if I could see it. I know that’s not very bright but my redneck genes took over and I couldn’t stop myself. When the lightning flashed, I couldn’t see the funnel because it was the same color as the clouds. But when it was dark, the city lights back-lit it and we could see it clearly. Yes, I meant we. My kids had joined me. The conversation was something like:
“Get back in the basement. We don’t know for sure where it is. OOOH! Look at that!”
That was when we saw electrical transformers exploding about 4.5 miles away as the funnel hit them. We lost sight of the tornado after that. We’ve spent the next 3 days helping people clean up. The base let us have the day to go help and provided busses to get down there. About 450 people went. Every church in town is also helping. This town has always come together in a crisis and this is no exception. It’s going to take a while to return to normal though. The good news is that there was only one fatality, a 90 year woman trapped in her trailer.
posted by Moneyman at 1:50 PM
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