Crazy Days

Indiana is really delivering this year. We have had:

• Ice storms
• Earthquakes
• Tornados!

A little advice. When you have a tornado or earthquake, the first thing you should do is call your mother. At least, that’s what I do. I called her at 4:30 a.m. to tell her there was an earthquake. She immediately knew there was something because who the hell calls at 4 a.m. for a little chit chat. I talked to my dad on Friday evening after the first storm blew through. I didn’t call him the second time, because we were ok. All in all, I think Dan and I spent about 2 hours huddled in our little walk-in closet with the dog and two cats.

I have to give credit to Indianpolis. After doing a siren replacement last years, we can finally hear when they go off. We use to have to open the window, it was so feint, and the fire station where the sirens are is not even a quarter mile down the road. This was the alert system for the WHOLE AREA, and we could barely hear it from a quarter mile. But Friday night, we were playing World of Warcraft. Dan and I were both on teamspeak, talking to two different groups of people. I had told the people I was playing with that I would be leaving the computer if I heard the sirens, because we had some strong storms blowing through. The wind blew, and thunder cracked above us. I got up at one poin to check our local weather channel. About an hour later, even with headphones on, I heard the tell-tale cry of the siren, indicating that the weather was so severe, we should go to our shelter. Knowing that this means we could have only mire seconds to get to our safe place, hit my push to talk button and told my group on TS as well as Dan, “sirens”. I threw off my headphones and grabbed my laptop bag which was right next to me. I said to Dan, “Sirens, go!” Dan starts to tell his group, “Well, I need to go to….” and I said, “Don’t explain, go! Sirens, go!” Tripping over dog and trying to rush to our walk in closet, we got there. We sat and looked at each other, and opened the door slightly to try to coax the kitties inside. I use to keep treats for them in the closet, because I don’t want Dan to go running through the house looking for them, as he has been prone to do. We lured them with false promises of kitty treats, and sat inside. I noticed I need to clean the place out. It’s was rather crowded.

Dan and I pulled out the laptops (hooray for wireless networks!) and looked at the internet a bit. It seemed we would be in there for a while. We could hear the wind pick up. We heard hail and rain beating against our window. We played on our computers and chatted with each other. We had the radio on, and heard that an apartment across town was destoryed by the winds. It started to become really warm and I said, “Is the sirens off?” Dan said, “Yes, but we are still on tornado watch.” I said, “No one stays in the closet for a tornado watch. It’s only the warnings.” So we went back to our computers. I called my mom and dad to let them know things were okay. Not 20 minutes later, a loud crack of thunder, and our internet goes out of the computers. I asked Dan if we should go back, and he said, “It might be a good idea.” So, back we went again, listening to the radio, using the computers, wondering if we would be spending the whole evening in the closet. It felt like we did.

When we emerged from the closet, Dan discovered his network card got fried on his desktop computer. That was the worst of our damage. Across town, though, people were displaced from their homes. It wasn’t until Saturday that it was determined a F2 tornado (according to the Fujita scale) actually touched down. 

Oh, and of course, it was beautiful and sunny on Saturday. My mom called to make sure everything was really okay, and I told her, “It’s beautiful and sunny out here!”