Bad Weather Friends

Forget fair weather friends.  I have bad weather friends. 

As everyone is well aware by now, my little corner of the country was obliterated a few days ago by the worst storm system to hit our area in about 60 years. 

I was worried about the weather all that day, since a well meaning but weather obsessed neighbor of mine was in freak out mode, updating Facebook every 3 seconds about the latest weather forecasts calling for straight line winds, likely tornadoes, baseball sized hail, and whatnot.  And since my mom raised me to be the type of girl who sleeps with a weather radio on cloudy nights, I was a bit tense and anxious about it all.

So I did what any normal person would do and loaded up all our home video tapes and photo backup cds into plastic-lidded buckets, and packed my "go bag" with a change of clothes for every family member, all the cash I could find in the house plus 2 savings bonds the girls got when they were born, my Kindle, make up bag, flashlight, and a few pieces of jewelry.  I turned the downstairs bedroom into a padded cell with extra pillows, mattresses, sleeping bags, and blankets.  I put batteries in the kids' sound machine so they might have a chance at staying asleep when the power went out.  I even put the waterproof, fireproof safe with all our important documents in the downstairs closet I was planning on hiding in should the SHTF. 

And then, when there was nothing else to prepare and hours left to obsess over the radar maps, forecasts, and crazed neighbor Facebook warnings...  I started inviting people over for a tornado party.  Because if I was going to die in this storm, I sure as heck wasn't brave enough to do it alone!

I was a tad surprised when my best friend showed up with her 5 kids and mom (her husband is a police officer and was at work) because just last week she was razzing me about how I overreact about whether.  She brought pizza and Cheerios and was relieved to find that her cell phone would work at our house (it hadn't been working at her own house all day, hence why she decided she'd be better off at my house even if the S did HTF).  Then I got a text from another friend about whether I was really serious about their family of three coming over, and could they bring their Labrador too?  I laughed and told her the garage would be ready for the dog, and to let themselves in if we were already "hunkered" down when they got there. 

Then my mom and her 2 dogs came over.  By 8 pm, the head count was:
7 adults
8 kids (2 four year olds, 3 three year olds, 2 toddlers, and 1 baby)
3 dogs

For a while it was just good fun.  The kids were jumping on the beds in the "safe room" while Tangled played in the background.  I was pouring drinks and fetching snacks from the kitchen, and everyone was just lounging around with pizza and light conversation.

The kids were in heaven with the mattresses to jump on and the friends to hug

Then, the S started to HTF.  The whole mood changed when the first round of tornado sirens started going off.

Two mommies started settling the kids down in the back bedroom, while the other mommy (me) and grand-mommies listened with increasing stress to the tv.

I was born in Texas and have lived in GA for the last 20 years, so I'm no stranger to storms.  What I am a stranger to is hearing Glenn Burns (who got increasingly attractive as the night wore on, amIright ladies? haha) say things like:
"People of the Lindale community, you need to take cover immediately.  Put on a bike or motorcycle helmet if you have one and go to the interior room of your house.  Cover up with a mattress if you can.  You are about to be hit by a tornado."

Or this gem:
"I'm looking at the radar and there's a little saying I remember from weatherman school: When green meets red, get under the bed.  It's get under the bed time, folks in Rome."

And the bad news just kept coming.  Communities to the North, South, East, and West of us were getting hit by 80+ mile an hour straight line winds and tornadoes.  We were in the basement, tensely listening to Chris's HAM radio giving reports of golf ball sized hail in the one friend's town, and a tornado on the ground in the other.  My mom sat in a chair, all balled up with her phone, checking it about every 5 minutes to see if our other family members were still responding to texts.  I sat by the window, listening to the howling outside, and kept refreshing the newsfeed on Facebook, watching statuses appear that said things like "A tornado just went over us, we can hear trees falling.  Pray."

I made him smile for the picture, but Chris was quite excited about the opportunity to dress in field gear and use all his fancy emergency radio equipment :)

And through this all, 8 angelic children slept.  They all slept, draped over one another as they slept on blankets on the floor, two-to-a-bed, one in a pack-n-play, two babies in closets.  I still can't believe that while the trees were touching the ground and the lightning looked like a strobe light in the sky, they SLEPT!  That's when I knew the Lord's hand was on us.

Three separate cells hit us over a period of about 3 hours, and truly and honestly, I kept expecting to hear that freight train sound, or things hitting the side of the house, or the roof ripping off.  When the radar finally showed we were in the clear, I think I breathed deeply for the first time the whole day.  I kept thinking, "What if something had happened?  What if all 15 of us were trapped in this basement?  What if...".

When the worst of it was finally past us, the men went out driving to see if the roads were clear enough for one family to head home.  The roads were fine, miraculously, so they and their trusty Labrador (who was also an angel the whole time) were heading home around 2 am.  The rest of the tornado party guests decided to "spend the night" which meant camping out for a couple more hours until daylight. 

In the morning, I was shocked to see that our neighborhood showed surprisingly few signs that the storm of the century had gone through just hours before.  Every town around us was reporting massive damage, but all we saw were a few downed trees.  For a moment, I felt kind of silly about all the fuss I'd made, but as the morning wore on and the pictures and stories started to appear on Facebook (this was one day I was wishing I had tv!) I realized just how close the devastation came to us. A tornado ripped through our county only 9 miles from our house.  That is CLOSE in tornado miles.  Another completely leveled a town an hour north of us, where a friend of mine and our chiropractor live (they are safe, praise the Lord!).  And then there's the one that hit Tuscaloosa, AL.  The town is gone.  The loss of life is staggering.

And I was hit with the realization that for some reason, I got to spend that night in safety, surrounded by friends who kept me from totally losing my mind, being witness to the miracle of 8 children asleep in one room.

And I just feel humbled.

So, now I know what to do to the next time bad weather hits:
1) Invite all my besties over.
2) Pray.