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It was a quiet, summer evening when we were startled by the sounds of sirens permeating our listening space. Spongebob still played in the background as we were jolted to our feet - our two little boys looking in our faces for explanation.
"Quick, turn on the news!" I yelled, raising my voice above the insult to my nervous system. The weather station was lit up in red and purple with banners and sirens warning of an impending tornado in our area. "Seek shelter in a basement or under stairs immediately!"
"Okay boys, we need to quickly, but safely, get to the basement...it will be okay." We made our way to the basement stairs but instead of going down, my older son ran upstairs as I ran after him.
"Mommy, mommy...I can't leave them!" His voice frantically grabbing each one of his stuffed animal friends. He had grabbed his pillow case and was stuffing them inside. He had so many they couldn't all fit so I assured him that the others would be okay for now. "We need to get to the basement now, honey" Just then my knees got weak and buckled beneath me. A sense of urgency flooded my body with adrenalin racing to my heart...."No, now honey, we need to go now!"
I grabbed his giant borreto of friends along with his hand and we decended down the stairs as fast as my shaking legs could carry us.
To my surprise my husband was stopped at the kitchen window and my son ran to him. "We have to go!" I yelled but they just looked like they got caught in some kind of altered reality frozen at the window. It was so surreal.
They were both just standing at the window pointing up at the sky, "Look at that!" my husband uttered. I threw the borreto babies down into the basement and was prepared to carry them both downstairs when I got caught up in the same altered reality. "Is that...is that a piece of a house?" My husband agreed that it was siding. Then there was a door, insulation and lots and lots of debris of every size and dimension above our house!
Just then the advisory alert system updated us saying the tornado was out of the area. The wind calmed down considerably giving us reason to relax enough to bring everyone upstairs and find candles and flashlights.
Over the course of several hours, we would learn that at the very moment my knees went weak was when a deadly tornado was directly over our house. It had jumped through our small town destroying one house, while sparing another. It had completely destroyed our local Walmart and other businesses.
The debris we saw floating above our house, was the actual tornado jumping over our house.
When I think of how we stood at our window in wonderment, I am incredibly thankful that our stupidity didn't cost us our lives.
Never ever do what we did.
This is my entry to @mariannewest's daily freewrite:
@mariannewest/day-1213-5-minute-freewrite-monday-prompt-siren