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March 13, 2006

It Was a Dark & Stormy Night

Seriously. The tornado missed us by this much....well, by a little less than a mile, the best I can tell. We are fine, no damage that we've found so far. But it was pretty scary for a while.

We'd been tracking the storm since it crossed over from Oklahoma. I'd just got WildChild to sleep when the tornado sirens sounded. From the radar, it appeared it was going to pass a little to the southwest of us. But we were keeping a really close eye on it from the front door. The winds were gusting pretty high, when suddenly we saw a bright blue light flash in the distance....a transformer blowing. A few seconds later, another bright blue flash, not too far to the southwest. The roaring we'd been hearing for a good 20 minutes got louder. Then I could hear large hail approaching.

That's when we grabbed WildChild out of bed, rounded up the pets and made a beeline for the basement. I don't mind telling you I was more than a little scared....and very thankful we had a sturdy basement.

We stayed down there until we heard the all-clear from one of the local tv stations. No damage in our neighborhood that we could see, and everyone appeared to be ok. Mike found some golf-ball sized hail in the front yard, but nothing like what our neighbor found. (BTW, glad to know you folks are ok)

From the news reports this morning, there are many, many damaged or destroyed homes in the tornado's path. But thankfully, I haven't heard of any serious injuries so far. Bentonville airport was hit pretty hard. And the roof is gone from the million-dollar new high school stadium....which is less than a mile from us as the crow flies. I've heard, via e-mail, from a good friend who lives in the storm's path. They are ok, but lost tiles from their garage roof and the crown of a large tree in their back yard was broken off.

Probably the worst part happened while I was trying to herd the dogs downstairs. Smokey ran down there as soon as I opened the basement door. Sassy went pretty easily with just a tug on her collar. Stupid Sollie, OTOH, ran away because he's afraid of the basement stairs. I spent more than a few minutes chasing him around the living room, all time hearing the storm getting closer, and the hail beating harder & harder against the windows. Talk about a dog getting a cussing. And all the time I was thinking, great. I'm going to die because the dog is too f*cking stupid to walk downstairs. To top that off, once the storm passed, it took both of us to catch the little idiot so we could carry him back upstairs.

Stupid dog.

As for WildChild, he slept through the entire thing. I've always said once he got asleep, he could sleep through a tornado.

And he sure did.

UPDATE: Forgot to mention a couple of things. One, the Benton Co. Dept. of Emergency Management has more details on the storm here. I haven't seen any photos posted yet, but I'll update with links as they become available.

Second, Matt says there were reports of several railcars that were lifted off the tracks & deposited in the roadway just east of them. Pretty scary.

Posted by Rita at March 13, 2006 07:18 AM

Comments

A few years back we had a teeny one come through the town (exceedingly rare in Jersey), and it tore up pavement and knocked down trees in a very direct and narrow path. Weird.

I have never experienced the real item such as you described (lifting freight cars off their tracks - YIKES!!), and I am not anxious to do so.

Glad you guys (and Mr. Stupid Dog) are OK.

Posted by: Jim - PRS at March 13, 2006 03:14 PM

Glad you made it through ok, I was thinking about you last night when I heard.
Do I see stair training in Sollie's near future? lol

Posted by: jen at March 13, 2006 04:29 PM

As I discovered when I took WildChild home after lunch, it got much closer than we realized. Yikes indeed.

Thanks Jen. It was pretty scary, prolly one of the worst storms I've been in up here. I was wishing I was one of those people too dumb or inexperienced to be scared. lol

Ack, the stupid dog does fine on the stairs to the attic/spare room. He just flatly refuses to use the basement stairs....I suspect because the stairwell's kinda dark. We're going to install an extra light and I think I'm going to start keeping an extra leash by the basement door. At least then once I catch him, I can drag him up & down the stairs all I want.

At least the cats aren't a problem. Samantha hides under the bathtub every time it thunders. And Smokey loves the basement....we usually have trouble keeping him out.

Posted by: Rita [TypeKey Profile Page] at March 13, 2006 04:42 PM