Welcome To The Midwest

[Iacobus]

LOL! I saw this in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch today. I ALMOST died it was soo funny. LOL.

And true :ph34r:

[quote]WEATHER: Welcome to the Midwest; now go hide in the bathroom
By MICHELLE R. ROBERTS
06/03/2004


Until last week, I was a tornado virgin. The warning came out of nowhere. I was alone. I was scared. I was a tornado virgin on the verge of freaking out.

Being recently transplanted from Boston, where they don't get tornadoes except maybe once a century, I was totally unprepared. Or was I prepared? I still don't know. But I know this: My downstairs bathroom is my new best friend, and I'm not talking about bodily-function necessities. I'm talking about life and death.

And I chose life last week, huddled in that tiny room next to my washer-dryer with my cats, musical instruments and a backpack full of assorted essentials. Funny, the things you grab in an emergency. I grabbed felines, guitars, violins, a banjo and a backpack with my wallet, car keys and other essentials (a pack of cigs, a picture of my mom, caffeinated gum, work papers, girl stuff and a couple of baseball caps).

I was watching TV with a friend one night last month. When the weather turns ugly around here, you hear three beeps, then a notice flashes across the bottom of the screen, along with a color-coded map indicating which areas are under watch, warning, etc. I noticed that our county was under a tornado watch, and I looked at my friend nervously, never having seen such notices in Boston.

"A 'watch' is nothing," she said. "We get them all the time. But when you see a 'warning,' it's 'run for cover' time."

Last week on Wednesday evening, I was at home watching a mindless "Seinfeld" rerun when those three beeps and the map popped up. It said there was a tornado "warning" in effect for my county until 7:15. I heard my friend's voice in my head: ". . . it's 'run for cover' time."

At that exact moment, the sirens sounded. I've never heard anything like them. They were loud . . . and long . . . and scary. So what's the first thing I did (stupid, curious Bostonian that I am)? I ran OUTSIDE!!! Luckily, the manager of the complex also was outside (what was her excuse, hmmmm?), and she told me to go into my first-floor bathroom and close the door. Since there is no basement in my townhouse, and that's the only room with no windows, it was the safest place to be during a tornado, she told me.

And that's where I went, after running around the place like a man in a TV commercial whose wife is going into labor, gathering things I wanted to "take with me" - like my cats, my instruments and my wallet (so they could identify my body). And there we huddled and talked - mostly me talking to myself but with the kids chiming in a few "Mummy, I'm scared" meows.

I kept running from the bathroom to the living room and back, trying to catch an update on the news. The sky was a grayish, greenish, yellowish color - a color that a sky Should Not Be. There was no wind, no rain and no sound except the sirens blaring in the distance.

Finally it came, whipping the outside world into a frenzy. I swear the trees were bent all the way over, bowing to Mother Nature. They knew their place and submitted to the wind. Those that didn't snapped in half. It sounded like a freight train running over my home. (The still-unconfirmed, unofficial sighting of a funnel cloud, I later learned, was three miles away.)

It was over in 10 minutes or so, leaving behind 6 inches of water, cars buried in mud up to their doors and trees and lawn furniture broken and tossed around like rag dolls. My car was spared, my townhouse was spared and I was spared. Spared but scared. I hope I never get any closer than that, although the locals - the lifers, the folks who've seen it all - are saying they haven't seen a spring with storms like this before. At least not in 10 years.

As they keep saying to me out here, "Welcome to the Midwest."


Michelle Roberts is a freelance writer who lives and works in west St. Louis County.[/quote]

[Mrs. Bro. Adam]

:laugh:

[Iacobus]

At our hotel last nite there was a tornado. You could see the sky in that green brown color (if you havn't seen that before it is a site!). When the sernins went off my family ran for the hall.

We except to have to fight for space. Nope. It was my family and this old lady and her husband. We looked up and down the hall, no one out of the rooms. We looked at the lady. She looked at us and said "Iowa." We said "Illonis!" LOL! Gotta love Midwesterners.

[1337 k4th0l1x0r]

Shouldn't this loss of tornado virginity at least wait until tornado marriage?

[Thy Geekdom Come]

[quote]And I chose life last week[/quote]

"Choose life, that your descendants may live..."

[quote]"A 'watch' is nothing," she said. "We get them all the time. But when you see a 'warning,' it's 'run for cover' time." [/quote]

Ummm...my family usually keeps on doing whatever we were doing when the warning sirens go off. Last time, we just kept on cooking our meatloaf while I, as usual, made the preperations for emergency conditions just in case.

[Colleen]

I remember being in a tornado, once. It didn't do anything where we were, but it completely destroyed a small town a few miles away. The sky turned yellow, and it was creepy.

There are always tornado alerts around here in the summertime, but nothing usually happens where I live. I think it's because of the lake. Don't know for certain if that's the real reason, but that's what I've always been told.

[BeenaBobba]

Haha. That was funny! But if I ever moved to the midwest, I wouldn't move into a house without a [b]big[/b] basement. Well, better yet, I'd want one of those storm cellars. You know, like the one Dorothy's Auntie Em had.

Dude, I'd be afraid to sleep at night during the tornado season. Knowing me, I'd probably have a "tornado bag" with stuff in it just in case.

God bless,

Jen

[Thy Geekdom Come]

[quote]There are always tornado alerts around here in the summertime, but nothing usually happens where I live. I think it's because of the lake. Don't know for certain if that's the real reason, but that's what I've always been told.[/quote]

Actually, from what little I've studied of meteorology, I think that would increase the potency of the tornado.

A tornado landed in the middle of the lake at the original Boys Town (a couple minutes from my house) a few years ago. :ph34r:

[BeenaBobba]

[quote name='Colleen' date='Jun 3 2004, 07:03 PM'] There are always tornado alerts around here in the summertime, but nothing usually happens where I live. I think it's because of the lake. Don't know for certain if that's the real reason, but that's what I've always been told. [/quote]
I live in Rhode Island, and we very rarely get tornados. I think there was an F2 a few years back, but they're usually smaller than that when we get them. But still, I remember getting wicked freaked out when there were tornado watches when I was younger. It's never gotten to be a "tornado warning" where I live, so I've never seen one. (And I'm not complaining about that! )

God bless,

Jen

[Mickey's_Girl]

Midwesterners rule!

MG (repping Indiana)

[BeenaBobba]

[quote name='Raphael' date='Jun 3 2004, 07:06 PM'] Actually, from what little I've studied of meteorology, I think that would increase the potency of the tornado.

[/quote]
Aren't they called waterpouts when they're over water? They can happen over the ocean, too. I saw some show where one went on top of a guy's boat...[i]while he was still in it[/i]!

God bless,

Jen

[Colleen]

[quote name='Raphael' date='Jun 3 2004, 05:06 PM']
Actually, from what little I've studied of meteorology, I think that would increase the potency of the tornado.

A tornado landed in the middle of the lake at the original Boys Town (a couple minutes from my house) a few years ago. :ph34r: [/quote]
Yeah, I don't know. But my grandma always said we wouldn't get affected by tornados because Lake Michigan was so big and it would drive it away.

Maybe she was telling me a story.

[VeraMaria]

[quote name='Iacobus' date='Jun 3 2004, 06:58 PM'] At our hotel last nite there was a tornado. You could see the sky in that green brown color (if you havn't seen that before it is a site!). When the sernins went off my family ran for the hall.

We except to have to fight for space. Nope. It was my family and this old lady and her husband. We looked up and down the hall, no one out of the rooms. We looked at the lady. She looked at us and said "Iowa." We said "Illonis!" LOL! Gotta love Midwesterners. [/quote]


We never have torneadoes...only hurricanes, but I think tornadoes are scarier because you dont have warning as long ahead as hurricanes...

[Iacobus]

Tornados are intresting. LOL! I was standing out, like all Midwestern males LOL!, looking at the sky and saying... "Hmmm that doesn't look good. But it is pretty." Than someone says "Ain't that brown color from dirt that gets sucked up?" And the reply is?... "You bet." (Paire Home Compian fans should get that joke, hehe).

[Luthien]

hurricanes are slowww. whats funny about some of em' is you guys get em in Miami, and we get the rest of 'em in Maine!