Tornadoes all around us in North Carolina Saturday

Saturday I knew there were severe weather forecasts, but I really wasn't paying attention too much.  In the afternoon we turned on the Weather Channel and found out a tornado was on the ground, and it looked to us like it was heading for Seth and Janette's apartment.

We called Seth, and told him to take cover, he doesn't have cable or satellite so he wasn't aware of the tornado, but he knew the weather was looking violent.  They live in a basement apartment so they were in a pretty safe location.

Then we watched the news coverage of several of the 60+ tornadoes that hit the five counties right around here.  It is so sad to hear of the people killed.

Sunday I drove to the Garner church building to hear Wayne give a talk, and had to drive through several intersections without traffic lights, because the electricity was still out along South Saunders street.  Police were blocking the road the other direction, where the buildings were torn up.

When I got to the University Ward, quite a few of the men were in jeans and Tshirts, because they had been out all morning helping people get trees off their houses.

Well, well, well.  Now I am reminded of all the other tornadoes in my lifetime.

The last tornado that I remember hitting this area was Nov. 28, 1988, that was shortly after we moved to Cary.  The tornado completely demolished the KMart in Raleigh, and then later a Walmart was built there.  That was right around Thanksgiving, the houses that were damaged had Christmas wreaths on their doors.

The night of that tornado I did a dumb thing.  We had four little kids, ages 5 months to 6 years.  I got up in the night and looked out at the rain going completely horizontal, and wondered whether to wake up all the little kids and Wayne and go down to the basement. (You know how awful it is to have to wake up kids and then try to get them all to go to sleep again.  Plus I hated to drag all the bedding down there.)

 Stupid me, I rationalized and said to myself, "Just go back to sleep."  I went to bed, and in the morning we found that the path of the tornado had skipped right over our house and made a path of devastation through the trees of Umstead Park.  You could draw a line on the map from our house through that line and on to the KMart.  I have always felt guilty that I didn't take my family to the basement, and I am thankful the tornado didn't hit us.

When I was very young in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, our tornado plan was to drive down into the rock quarry, since it was the lowest place around.

Then in Cleveland, Oklahoma, we had a "fraidy hole" (cement storm cellar) in the backyard, but we never went in there, it was too creepy and spidery and moldy.  I guess there were never any tornadoes while we lived in that house.

When I was in high school, in Stillwater, Oklahoma, a tornado hit our town.  We drove to the Morrill's house, because they had a walk-out basement (houses in Oklahoma just don't have basements, the water table is too high.)  We got to stand on the front porch and watch the tornado about 5 miles away.

Those are all the tornado memories I can think of.