"Imminent Rue-age"

The title of this entry is from a very cool movie, "Twister". However, when it's happening to you, or the threat of a tornado is happening to you, it isn't all that cool.

Last night, we have very severe thunderstorms move in to our area. I've blogged about the spring thunderstorms in North Texas before, but last night was a little different. I was watching TV, when the program I was watching was interrupted by a Tornado Warning. I heard the thunder and saw the lightening outside but didn't think to much of it. However, as I went to the front door to look outside, three things happened that raised the hair on my neck.

1) Hail was coming down quite strong. The hail was approximately marble size, and it was really slamming down.

2) The TV went out as I went to the door. If you've seen "Twister" then you know in one scene that the TV goes out right before one of the bigger tornado hits.

3) The tornado siren in Rowlett began to go off. As the siren went off, I decided to run for the pantry (it is the only interior "room" in our house. I've only heard a tornado siren once before, and it really makes you feel scared. I thought that the siren meant a tornado was on the ground, but apparently that's not the case.

However, Justin arrived home at the same time. Since he was home, I couldn't very well go scurrying into the pantry. Justin is a old hand at tornadoes, and isn't intimated by them - like I am.

As he played on the computer upstairs, I watched out the window and the weather map on TV. The sirens went off a total of two more times, but no tornado appeared. Some close towns were not spared so well, as a minimum of two tornadoes are believed to have hit last night.

I'm just glad that everyone is safe and I didn't rue the day I didn't hide in the pantry.

SL