Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Flooding, Hurricanes and Tornadoes... OH MY!

Living in Texas, you have to learn to embrace the crazy weather. My children were soooooo disappointed when they stepped outside yesterday afternoon only to discover that the nice, chilly, fall rain they expected to feel was really warm, dank and muggy. Kind of like the Gulf of Mexico was raining down on us. Oh wait... it was.

We didn't hear the tornado sirens that Patty heard, but one of the moms in the gymnastics class we were attending did get a call from her concerned husband who wanted to relay information about a tornado warning. Oh great! Sitting in a big open gym with a metal roof that can be peeled back as easily as the lid of a sardine can is right where you want to be when a twister rolls into town! Thankfully, a quick call to Husband and we learned it was south of us heading the opposite direction. Shortcake turned about three different shades of green before I could relay that information to her. She is terrified of the word "tornado" and don't even think about using the T-word in the same sentence as "warning". Thanks to our spring storm seasons, she knows what the phrase means and her imagination paralyzes her. Poor thing thought she was well past those fears once summer hit.

I must admit, tornadoes are not my favorite thing either, but I don't freak out too much if I am at home with my storm closet ready to go. Patty reminisced about basements during their wild weather scare yesterday. I wish we had basements in Texas. I have sometimes thought about digging a storm cellar in our backyard or lining our closet with Kevlar. In the meantime, prayer, our weather radio, a cell phone and a husband who has constant internet access at work keeps our fears under control when we have to be out and about in this yucky stuff.

Please pray for those of us to the south who have been more severely impacted by this storm!

4 comments:

  1. It's been terrible.

    A 19 year old was killed in the flooding here when her car was swept away.

    Mobile homes have been floating down creeks!

    It's really horrible.

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  2. Oh,I so feel for Shortcake! I have a real, diagnosed phobia of tornadoes. (I don't talk about it on my blog because the fall-out from my family would be worse than a tornado.) It is so hard to deal with, especially because I will start getting worked up when the weather reports indicate "thunderstorms, some of them could be severe." We've lived in TX, KY, MD, DC and KS, so when it was time to choose our permanent residence, we chose a state, city and even zip code that is not likely to get tornadoes.

    PS- you went back to a full feed! I'm so glad. :)

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  3. I've been in two tornadoes...I never get over the fear. It is so hard to stay calm in front of the little ones when you have goosebumps sky high on your arms!

    I'm all for reinforcing my 'under-the-staircase' shelter :)

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  4. The rain really has been terrible.

    My oldest daughter freaks out as well over tornado warnings. We once had to wake them up and shuttle them down into our "storm closet" (after we threw all the coats and shoes out of it). It stresses her out.

    Oh, and thank you for going back to full feed. :)

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