A Stormy Little Adventure

It was both frightening and exciting simultaneously. The storm came in at night with a ferocious snarl and destructive intent. I have never seen anything like it.

Jagged forks of lightning cavorted in the darkness like living entities, strobing the night with amazing beauty and frightening displays of raw power unleashed. Trees did not just sway. They actually bent in the wind as they were being ravaged by nature’s angry, gusty whims.

The city’s emergency sirens came alive, clearly warning that funnel-cloud rotation had been spotted in the area. The wind howled like some angry creature, voicing its extreme displeasure about... well, about everything, from the sound of it. When I ventured to the windows, I saw a hellish scene that looked like the trees were being beaten and whipped into submission by the wind.

I’ve lived here for seven years now, and as I said, I had never seen anything like this. Rain was hitting the house so hard that it sounded like hail.

The electricity abruptly deserted, leaving the entire neighborhood in darkness. I have mini-flashlights in every room because I often have to go behind equipment like TVs, stereos and computers to fix or adjust things. I grabbed a flashlight from my bedroom and went to search for batteries, candles and lanterns. I lit at least one light in every room.

I went to the window to look outside again, and it was truly a nightmare of leaning trees, flying debris, darkness and pummeling rain, with crooked fingers of electric fire dancing in the background. The city’s sirens were still stridently warning. Looked like a good time to get the heck out of Dodge. Having no basement, I grabbed a mattress from my sofa-sleeper, opened the little crawlspace door under the stairs, pushed the mattress inside and followed it quickly. The crawlspace has concrete floor, walls and ceiling under the stairs, so I felt like I had done the best I could in seeking protection.

I was afraid, but not terrified. It didn’t take long for me to become very uncomfortable, though. It was sultry hot in that small space. The dimensions are about six feet long by six feet high, by five feet deep; it felt a bit claustrophobic, but comparatively safe.

After about 30 minutes of nothing, I was restless and uncomfortable. I opened the crawlspace door and went to retrieve my battery-operated fan, my Kindle, my crank-up weather radio and a couple of sheets for the mattress. I got old twin-bed sheets so that I wouldn’t have to worry about missing them if the worst happened and I had to crawl under the mattress for protection.

Another half-hour of nothing. Yes, the wind was howling at screaming banshee levels, the deck furniture was trembling and my nice, heavy wooden rocking chair was doing a slow-shimmy dance across the porch but so far, nothing was deadly-affected other than the electricity. I must admit that I was worried about my computers and peripherals, which abruptly shut down when the outage occurred. I have had to replace broadband modems and routers under conditions far less violent than this.

Another half-hour goes by. Now I am hungry. My stomach reminds me that I have not eaten since breakfast and it’s late. It’s nighttime and my stomach is very unhappy. After brief contemplation, I leave my little shelter once again in search of food. After making a sandwich while the frightening wind howled and the harshly-blown rain attacked my windows, I returned to the little shelter under the stairs with my sandwich and bottles of water.

After eating my sandwich, I think: What the hell good does it do to hide out in a shelter, and then leave it in search of comforts whenever the mood strikes? How stupid is that? Good thing I’m not on some survivor show.

In the aftermath, I found out that there were two EF1 tornado touchdowns in the area. My secondary computer died along with my VOIP phone, and a couple light bulbs got fried.

I think I failed every aspect of emergency preparedness. The consolation prize is that it could have been much worse