An Unexpected Tornado

Hello sweet one!

I need to tell you about yesterday!  We were supposed to have some showers and isolated thunderstorms come through.  What we got was one of those summer soakers that just do not seem to let up much.  This caused much distress for TWS who is eager to finish digging the trench from the well to the garden, coop, orchard, and greenhouse sites.  It involves a trench 5 foot deep to get below the freeze line.

The problem is our land is so low and the water table so high that the trench is filling with water.  Add rain to that, and there is real concern that the walls of the trench could collapse.  That would make it very difficult for TWS to get the trench dug back, as the tractor would have to straddle the trench.

Plus, the water makes it very difficult to dig, as he cannot see the depth he is at AND the water washes the heavy clay back out of the bucket.  So rain was not that welcome.

We had to buy a pump to try to get the water out of the trench.  I will not bore you with the details of me trying to get a pump for him the day before yesterday with little clips of paper with pictures on it, not finding the right parts, not getting the right hose, and basically me getting washed in irritation (not one of my best moments of late).  At the end of the day, though, all we were missing were two parts for the pump.

So yesterday we were going to get the pieces for the pump, rock salt and ice for homemade ice cream, and a few other items.  We left the babies to finish their homeschool, not thinking much about it.  The weather was not supposed to be bad.  There were no thunderstorm watches or warnings, no tornado watches or warnings, no thunder AT ALL, and no lightning at all.  No hail.  Just a constant rain.

As we get to the first stop, the most phenom store I think I have ever seen, I briefly notice that a cloud looks odd.  Not "tornado green" that the sky can get, but dense and wrong somehow.  I do not say anything, I dismissed it.  We walk through the rain (as per Mythbusters test of if you get more wet walking or running in the rain ;) ), and into the store. 

I am in awe.  This store has FOUR showrooms of anything at all you could want in a house.  My description of what little I saw could not do it justice in the least.  It was amazing and I looked forward greatly to browsing every room whilst TWS gets his part from the counter at the back of the store.  I wondered how many hours he would let me shop before getting me to move on to the rest of our list ;).

I was going to look at all the pretties, but TWS called me to where he was in the back to look at some porch lights that were hanging (this is one of MANY God things in this).  I also get distracted from leaving because there were knobs and handles right there, and I want some new ones for the kitchen.  As I browse, I overhear one of the ladies who work there talking on the phone.  Apparently a relative of hers had called because they heard on a scanner that there was a funnel cloud spotted.  She hung up and called another person to inform them.  At that point, I go over to ask her what she had heard.  We are still relatively new to the area, so I asked her where it was seen.  Then I asked her where north was.  She had been informed that it was heading in our direction, but I was fairly (but not 100%) certain that could not be as we were due west, and tornadoes travel northeast.  However, my house was right in the path...the house we had left just a few minutes previously.

I check my phone and find that there is no way to contact the babies.  TWS has the same issue, so I ask the gentleman if I could use their phone.  I call the kids and tell them to stay calm, to get themselves, the dog, and the cat into the shelter and to do it now.  A lady who overheard me complimented me on how calm I sounded :).  Truthfully, I was very calm.  Panic and terror only make a situation worse, and I have been through pretty much every severe weather phenomenon from tornadoes to volcanoes.

Not long after, the sirens started wailing.

I ask the lady at the desk if there is a basement, inner room, or a bathroom in the huge store.  She pointed to the bathroom, but it was on an outer wall.  They did not have any inner rooms per se (that she could tell me about, the ladies all seemed a bit shaken).  TWS and I decided to try to make our way to the house.  Again, I was almost certain that, unless something was very off, this building would not get hit.  And truthfully, the place was so filled with glass and sharp and heavy metal, I could not help but think about the scene in a movie where the couple were going to hide in the barn, but it was filled with blades and plows.  I would rather have taken my chances in a ditch.

TWS and I took a very westerly route home, skirting away from the tornado's path.  Cell calls and texts would not go through.  However, I COULD get on facebook, and I posted to the children on there, in case they decided to check it.

This is a very important note:  in a disaster, there are overrides and protocols that will make sure that emergency services have clear phone lines.  Winds can topple cell towers, and everyone will be trying to use their cell phones.  Here are some tips for disaster communications:

-Instead of trying to call, if you are in a disaster, try to TEXT--it uses much less data and will often (but not always) go through when a call will not.
-Try posting on a social site or sending an email.  This will sometimes work when calls will not.
-Switch to wifi and see if there are any open wifi's (like around a coffee shop or bookstore).
-Do not try to call everyone.  Call ONE person out of the danger area and have them make your calls.  Everyone wants to make sure everyone is alerted and safe.  Be courteous and contact ONE person and let them spread your news and check for you.  Post on your facebook, or have your contact post on your facebook. 
-Have a landline with CORDED phones.  Yes, it costs money.  But in a disaster, if the power goes out, the corded landline will sometimes still work, especially if it is an underground line. The phone draws its power from the phone line itself, not from the house's power supply.  However, this only works on corded phones, not cordless.
-Make sure you have a weather radio and a shortwave and am/fm radio with lots of batteries and/or a crank radio so you can get important weather or evacuation information.

We arrived home to find Peekie and Sooper cool as cucumbers in the tornado shelter.  The cat was stressed and the dog was out of his mind, but the kids were stellar and smiling.  They have had practice being level headed in an emergency, and TWS and I have been DETERMINED to model that behavior.  They know that panic is bad, thoughtful planning is good, and that emotions need to be reined in so that logic and clear thought can be used in any bad thing (tornado, illness, accident, etc). 

It feels right and reasonable to panic, but it is the exact WRONG thing to do.  You are much more likely to survive with a cool head, and you are much more likely to save your children if you keep a cool head.  If nothing else, that is a reason to practice keeping your emotions under control--you do not want your panic to have you make devastating choices.

And if you model calm behavior to your children, then they will be calm and make good choices when they are not with you and something happens.  I was able to get on and off the phone with the kids, giving positive, firm, easy instructions.  They fed off of that and did exactly right.

We watched the storm cloud pass not too far from our house.  We could not see the tornado for the treeline, but it was close enough.  This was an excellent, though a bit disconcerting, practice for us.  There is always room for improvement, such as "we really need chairs in the shelter" and "Next time, grab your boots", but overall things worked just right, thank the Lord.

And I do thank the Lord.  He made so many things happen just right.  We had driven right past where the tornado crossed the road a short time later.  I could think "WOW, if we had been a few minutes later, we could have gotten hit!" but instead I say "WOW the Lord made every bit of timing work out just right!" and I also realized that we cannot dodge our fate.  We cannot fret over "what if" this and "what if" that.  The Lord has everything under control.  We cannot try to save our own life by fear, we can only lose it by fear.  We can prepare, learn, equip, train.  Those are good.  Then after that, it is all up to the Lord....and frankly that takes a LOT of stress off of my shoulders for feeling like "If i do not miss ANY details then we will be ok, but if I miss even one thing, then our fate is on my shoulders".  Nope.  I can only act in wisdom and knowledge that I have at that moment, and then the Lord has the reins :)
I also learned this:  never trust a storm. ;)