Tornado Sirens = Panic Attacks

I am slowly but surely moving all of my old blogs over from my myspace account over to here. So, I have to admit ... some of these will be old ... but they are still memories that Clint and I will have forever.


They are dated though ...
Sunday, September 14, 2008


For those of you that TRUELY know me . .. . know that me and storms don't mix! I mean, come on . . I grew up on a farm. A counrty girl just did not hear sirens throughout her younger years. The only siren I heard where when the school had a "practice drill". I had NO idea what one sounded like in dangerous weather until I moved in with Clint (and that is a story that I will have to share with you some other time . . . let's just say I ran into a wall when the darn thing went off).


Since Clint left for his job in July, I have to admit that it has been a big fear of mine that a storm was going to hit while he was gone. I HAD lucked out . . . UNTIL FRIDAY!!! At 4:30 our weather radio started to go off (which we have in our bedroom). I thought it was odd, after all . . . it was just raining and really cloudy outside. There was not any wind, thunder or lightning. But I went down the hall to hear what it said. Sure enough it said Douglas County was in a Tornada WARNING!!! NOT a watch but a freaking WARNING. I stood there as they said that Eudora was about to get hit and should talke cover . . . what???!!! Did that seriously say . . . EUDORA???!!! MY TOWN???!!!


I went to the girls room (where they were playing) and told them to pick up their toys and how about we play downstairs for awhile. Hold on . . . was the the FREAKING SIRENS that I suddenly heard???? I ran to the front door and opened it to see if that was the town sirens (which I had NEVER heard for the 2 years we had lived here). Sure enough . . . they were going off. Panic set in like NOTHING else. I told the kids to get downstairs as I was fighting back tears. I could not let the kids see me freak out . . . or they would get scared.


As I got them down the stairs and asked them to play in our little "storage area" I went back up the stairs and suddenly froze there. What do I do? Do I watch the tv? Do I open windows or is that an old wives tale? Do I grab some "important" things that I can put in the basement with me in hopes of not having it blown away? Was everything that Clint and I worked so hard for about to be ripped away from us by a tornado???


The first thing that I would fully think clearly on . . .was that I wanted Clint home. I called him with my hands shaking, tears falling down my face as I stood at the foot of the basment as my chest got tighter and I could not catch my breath . . . this was NOT a time to have a panic attack. The freaking sirens went off NINE more times. Yes count them . . . (I sure was) NINE times. Each time it went off . . .I kept thinking "was this the time a tornado was coming" . . . after all, the sirens WERE obviously going off for some reason . . . but what was the reason!!! AHHH!!!


I suddenly could breath a sigh of relief when my neighobr (who is a cop) texted me and told me that they called off all the civilian watchers because we were out of the severe warnings. Thank goodness!!! After a little over AN HOUR of the sirens going off NINE times I had had ENOUGH!!! It was NOT an experience that I wanna go through EVER again without Clint!! Better yet . . . it is NOT an experience that I EVER wanna go through EVER again!!! This just reassures the factor that me and storms . . . just don't mix!!!