A few weeks ago, I talked about my love for storms. It was during the time when tornadoes were tearing through Arkansas and flood waters were overtaking Tennessee. I regretted not being there, because I really do like a storm.
Over the years, I have been in the path of tornadoes, but never felt the full punch of one. While I was still a child, my mom took movies of a funnel cloud starting to rotate outside our back window. When I was a young married woman, a funnel cloud passed over our neighborhood, blowing off shingles and tree branches, but doing no real damage (it did touch down in a rural part of the county near our home, taking down a few trees, but that was all). I remember that night, because I was up feeding Jesse, and I heard the signature sound of a train coming before it passed over. Many years later, we were driving to Eric's parents home through stormy weather. The rain finally became so heavy that we pulled over and waited it out at a convenience store. Later, we found out that a tornado had passed through that area only moments after we had pulled over (this is the story that prompted Jesse to tell me "dad would pull over in weather like this" during another one of my tornado escapades). Another day was while we lived in Maryland. The forecast was for bad weather, and I was outside putting up lawn furniture, bikes, etc. when Eric got home from work. We were talking outside when he heard what he thought was a siren. I didn't hear it, so he went in to check the weather. Sure enough, it was a tornado warning, and the track put our home in the storm's direct path (yes, our street on the weather tracking thing they do). He packed us up in the car, and we left. When we came back, we saw that there had been no touch down. But our trampoline was blown into the woods, and the tops of the trees in our woods were twisted off in a path between our home and our neighbors. If it had touched down, our home would have been destroyed.
Even with all that, I still revel in storms (maybe even because of it - who knows). But this past weekend we received a phone call that made it personal. We own property in McNairy county, Tennessee. There was no home on it, just a garage and several large old oak trees. My brother called to tell us that a tornado had touched down in McNairy county, and you guessed it, it hit directly on our property. All the trees along the road were taken out. We will have to go clean this up. It will be no small task, and I dread it. It's now my family that has to do the clean up, taking time and money to do it. There is some sense of justice in that (it's wrong to take pleasure in what does damage to others and that's what I have done through the years). But even in this set back, we can rejoice that no one was hurt and no home destroyed. The sad thing is, I am the one who chases the storms and takes pleasure in them, but it will be my sensible husband who has to use the chain saw and physical labor to clean up the mess.
