A Tornado Story, By Biblet

Last Saturday evening DH and I left our little daughter with visiting grandma and headed into town really quick for some diapers at the local general store (Target). The weather as far as we could tell was just fine. A little cloudy, but nothing alarming.

As we drove out of our little valley of a neighboorhood and crested the top of the hill to exit onto the main drag of our one-horse town, we saw in the west a forboding sight. A dark looming wall was marching towards town and our goal, the local Target. But, since this is a common sight around here on spring/summer evenings we thought nothing of it and continued our trek. As we got closer to this storm, we were witnessing more and more of it's potential. We finally got a good look at it when we got into town, at a clearing waiting for the light to change at a four way stop. Right above us was an eerie, yellow, perfect text book example of a wall cloud, and in this cloud was yes- a funnel cloud. No one at the light moved, even as the signal changed from green to red, back to green. All of us watched this monster descend upon us like deer in headlights. I don't remember much afterwards, but this is what I do remember:

A man next to us opened his car window and began to shout at us. I said, "Rick, drive." and DH swerved into the oncoming lanes around the line of traffic we were in, ran a red light and sped forward to the first turn we could take off of the road. This led us into a residential neighboorhood full of dead ends and cul-de-sacs. I called my MIL (grandma at the house with our little one) and told her about what we saw, and asked her to get into the basement. Right after I said that we heard the tornado sirens, and my MIL said "There's a tornado warning for Forest Lake, get into a building quickly!" but DH decided that he wanted to go home. So, we sped home, jumping curbs, running red lights, ignoring stop signs, and going WAY over the posted speed limits. We saw people pulling over on the roads and pulling into yards, running up to random doors of homes. I don't think we would of been pulled over, as three police cars passed us on our race home. We sped through driving hail, rain, wind, and various objects that were flying around. I could hear the "whoosh shoosh shoosh shoosh" of this tornado nearby that had touched down, but luckily we were heading away from it.

We made it home safely, and luckily no one was hurt in what turned out to be a minor tornado.

And this was my first and only tornado experience thus far in my young life. The end.

Do you have any crazy weather related stories?

HOLY COW!!!

That is way to crazy!

and no... I have nothing..blah

Whew! That had to be scary! I've never been in the path of a tornado and I hope that I never experience anything like that!

Glad everyone is okay! :)

Never never never try to outrun a tornado.. we can't lose our Biblet

WOW thats scary, we don't get many tornado around here, only one that I can remember and it didn't do much damage. Glad you made it home safely

Wow that is scary, glad to hear that your family is ok.

I grew up in IL and it was not at all unusual to hear the tornado siren or see the funnel clouds forming so it really was never a source of panic for me but my husband grew up in New England and they don't have them here(very rare) so we are in my home town-we had moved back there for a few years and the ominous green sky rolls in and I am thinking oh we are going to see some weather. I made the mistake of saying it looks like it could tornado and I see my husband's face go white-I go to the front porch and all around the neighbors are out on their porches(that's what we did in that community)trying to assess the situation and ready to take cover quick if need be. Well the tornado siren blows and my husband is in panic mode-took the kids and the dog to the basement and was freaking out that I was still on my front porch as were all our neighbors on theirs and he came up from cover and begged me to get to the basement. We still laugh about that story the kids and I -hubbie still not laughing. I worked at Mickey D's for a while during tornado season and people didn't even leave the line or drive through when the siren blew-just continued about their day and certainly were not going down without their fast food :)

Holy cow cubfan! I woulda' dropped my quarter pounder like a hot potato and high tailed it outta there! Shoot. :P

Oh wow! In 1992 I was in a tornado. It uprooted all the trees in our apple orchard, flattened homes all around us, power lines down, the national guard had the area closed up so no way to get to the grocery store or school for approx. 2 weeks. We cooked on the grill, and just bided our time. I will never forget that time. It was so scarey right before it hit. I could hear the train sound as we ran to the basement. We lived in Ohio then and it was in November not the usual time for tornadoes. I lived around a lot of the German Baptists(think Amish) and it was amazing how they all banded together to rebuild homes. I was so impressed. We should all live like they do in the part about helping and supporting each other anyway.
Biblet so happy you and yours are safe! I live in NC now and we get an occasional warning but not too often and as of the past 10 years I haven't seen another tornado.

Happy to hear, Biblet, you et al were safe.

Coming from South Florida, I have been in a number of hurricanes, some minor and a few major. I have witnesses a lot of scary times and a lot of destruction.

People say that at least with hurricanes you get some warning. This is true.

However, hurricanes are unpredictable and even more unpredictable are the tornados that come with them, which are actually, the most dangerous part.

*shiver* It's all scary to me....

Biblet,

I am so happy that you are safe. I can't imagine how you must've felt.

I am always glad to hear when people make it out of storms ok, I was in a bad tornado in 1992 and it is an experience no one forgets.

Thank God you all are well

:affraid: is all I have to say about that.

Just about a month ago we had a little tornado go through here and literally uprooted our walnut trees. We have never been through anything like this before and it scared the crap out of us. We live in a small trailer and have no where safe to go so we just sat in the kitchen where less windows are and had all 5 dogs in the house with us. I literally risked my life getting my dogs out from the weather. The trees were still falling while I was outside getting the dogs one at a time.

It was scary and now when we have a storm I am always afraid that this will happen again.

Wow, what a story. I'm so glad you made it safely. When did you ever get any diapers? :affraid:

I love the story by the way. Being new at this forum I don't know all of your many talents but you are obviously a great storyteller AND writer.

We had a couple of tornadoes pass through the area this spring/summer. My son and I got in a utility closet in the garage during one of them while the girls were at school and my husband was at work. That one ended up not doing much here. The other one, which was a bit worse and did cause quite a bit of damage in this area, we spent sitting on the couch, peeking out of the windows, watching TV, and calling people! :scratch: