Ruffled but unscathed

Spring in Texas means storms. Lots of storms. Noisy, windy, disconcerting storms in such quantities that one is tempted to mute the alarm on the weather alert radio just to avoid being wakened every 15 minutes, as some squall line or another claws its way inexorably eastward from Weatherford to Paris. “One” being me, in case that one got by you.

So it was business as usual when last night's news was filled with dire pronouncements of thunderstorm and tornado watches – and yet something told me I should unmute the weather alert radio before going to bed. And sure enough, the thing started going off at around 3:45 to tell us that Ft. Worth was getting hammered. I put it back on standby and got back in bed. The weather alert went off again a short time later, this time to inform us that the storm was dropping large hail and threatening funnel clouds in the neighboring county. This time, I put on my glasses and turned on the TV to see what the radar said.

The radar was very red with lots of little spinny things indicating areas of rotation that were moving at about 60 mph toward my little town. The radar was telling me, "Roust the Turtle out of bed, grab the kittens, and get ye to the guest bathroom away from the windows. Take ye also the little Casio TV and a candle.

“P.S. - Don't forget matches.”

About five minutes later, the storm hit. I wasn't sure if the roaring was the wind, or hail, or just a whole bunch of rain; and I wasn't sure I wanted to know. The power went out, so I lit the candle and switched the TV over to batteries. By 4:15, it sounded safe to come out and go back to bed.

I rolled out of bed about 7am – an hour and a half past my usual weekday wake-up time. The power was still out, and as long as that was the case I wasn't going to work anyway. I pulled on a pair of jeans and headed outside, bracing myself for the sight of tree branches and shingles and sections of fence lying in the street. Instead, I was relieved to discover that not only was my house and yard intact, but so were the neighbors' places.

When I heard voices down the cul de sac, I shuffled that way and found one of the neighbor ladies and her kids taking stock, as I was. She was on the phone with the power company and had been, off and on, since 5:30. I successfully fought off the temptation to observe that the power company, having taken down her report once, might just have more pressing concerns than answering her repeated phone calls. Across the street, a large trampoline lay, mangled, in the middle of the entrance to the alley, apparently having failed to stick its landing after a successful leap to freedom over a back yard privacy fence.

“Ah well,” said the trampoline's owner, who had just come outside. “We were wanting to get rid of that thing anyway.” When we and her son picked up the trampoline to move it out of the alleyway, it dutifully fell to pieces.

“Well, there you go,” I said. “So much for having to disassemble it.”

One of the neighbors said that the expensive new development three or four miles to the west of us had been hit hard and that she'd heard that a category one tornado had touched down there. I said a little prayer of thanks and headed back to my undamaged home where my wife and pets were dry and safe to wait for the power to come back on.


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