First, I am fine. The house still stands. Thank you so much for your tweets and FB messages. It made me feel loved. The large tornado which devastated parts of Piedmont and the west side of Guthrie including the high school was about ten miles west of here. Tornadoes also touched down in other communities which haven’t received as much news coverage like Chickasha and El Reno.
It’s been a rough weather week throughout much of the U.S., and last Tuesday, Oklahoma wasn’t spared Nature’s vehemence either.
On Twitter, when I said I wasn’t afraid of tornadoes, I was taken to task by one tweeter. Really, I’m not afraid, but I think I should explain why. I’ve lived in Oklahoma my entire life, and I understand tornadoes the way people born in California “get” earthquakes. I am in awe of their violence, and I respect their power, but I don’t live in fear.
I am prepared. My log home is built into the side of a hill, and we have a basement with an interior closet that has a ceiling reinforced with steel. Generally, several days beforehand, we know when bad weather is on the horizon, and once the meteorologists tell us a storm with possible tornadoes is forming, our family gets home before it starts. Tornadoes usually occur in late afternoon right around rush hour or a little after. Although sometimes they do form at night. The nighttime ones are scary, but I have a very loud weather radio next to my bed.
Tuesday morning dawned hot and still. As I walked outside to drive Bear to school, all around me it as if the environment was gearing up for something. In fact, it reminded me of when I was at the end of my pregnancies.
Waiting . . . .
I turned to Bear and said, “We will have a storm tonight.”
In Oklahoma, we are fortunate to have the best warning system in the world. Students study in Norman at the National Weather Service because we are smack dab in the middle of tornado alley.
As for meteorologists, it doesn’t take a red, bedazzled “severe weather” tie for me to watch Mike Morgan of KFOR. That evening, my family studied the radar as Mike pointed out the track of the various tornadoes. Storm spotters also relayed live information as they rode in special vehicles (David Payne among others) and flew in the sky (Jim Gardener.) We held our personal photos, flashlights and weather radio prepared to run to the basement if necessary.
Let me just say a word about Jim Gardener. In Oklahoma, we all love KFOR’s eye in the sky. He is one of the kindest and most conscientious photojournalists out there. Because every station has its strengths, we also switch back and forth to KWTV with the famous Gary England and KOCO TV with our friend, Rick Mitchell too.
Between these three news stations, they now have the technology to predict within blocks where a tornado is going to hit, the time, and how strong it will be. Tornadoes are rated on the Fujita scale from F0 to F5. On a day like last Thursday, the power in the atmosphere was F4 to F5, which is deadly. An F4 or F5 tornado will turn your home into a pile of sticks in a New York minute.
The people in the cars in this video shot by storm chasers made me very angry. They are all too close to the half-mile wide tornado which eventually hit Piedmont. Cars are not safe. Overpasses are extremely unsafe because the velocity of the tornado will suck you out from beneath them. I sometimes think tornadoes fill people with so much awe that they freeze.
For those of you who don’t live in tornado alley, know that most tornadoes only hit one small area at a time. They can land, cause trouble and then pop back up into the clouds. However, with David Payne driving right into the thick of them, we usually know just how bad they are. If you watch the David Payne footage, it is frightening. Most storm chasers are professionals. Please don’t try this on your own.
The weather folks and newscasters had warned all day that an interior closet or bathroom might not be enough. (It is for smaller tornadoes, but you never know which type will hit.) If you live where such storms strike, I would suggest you either get a shelter like mine or one you can place beneath your garage floor. The Communications Federal Credit Union is now offering low interest loans for people to purchase shelters.
If you decide not to have a shelter, know where your local, public shelters are and get there way ahead of the storm. By the time the sirens start to scream, it is probably too late.
We only had one scary moment when the tornado turned and began tearing down Waterloo Road about fifteen miles from our house. My daughter, Diva, works at a Sonic on Waterloo approximately four miles away, and I couldn’t reach her. Because this particular storm was so large, cell towers weren’t working in my area, and my calls would not go through. Fortunately, her boss reached her and said to turn around and come home. Once all my chicks were in the nest, I was relieved. Local friends were texting me, so I knew they were also safe. For some reason I could get texts, but could not call out.
As for the ten people who were killed, I am truly saddened by their deaths. Both Joplin and Tuscaloosa fared so much worse, and I think it was a combination of things including the tornado hitting large populated areas. Oklahoma is still very rural.
The Hamil family, who lost both of their sons, are parishioners of St. Damien’s parish (as are three other families who lost everything), and I am a member of St. John’s. The entire community is reaching out to them and everyone who lost loved ones or property.
If you want to help any of the families in the U.S. who were touched by the recent tornado outbreaks, there are several ways, but the Red Cross is always a good one.
I leave you with another shot of the garden which is starting to come into its own. As for tornadoes, we’re nearly through the season. Stay safe everyone and heed the meteorologists when they say duck and run.
You KNOW that I was worried about you, but I’ve been down in that safe spot in your house and by golly, I would feel safe there for sure.
Your garden looks lovely. I always remember how I felt when I drove up and saw the log cabin and the gardens, and the chickies, and best of all-YOU!
Love,
Sharon
Love you too Dear Girl. Hope the world is treating you right.
wow… glad everything is ok and mellowing out a bit more for you.
Thanks Jen. It’s now hotter than a firecracker.
God bless!! Glad you are safe. .you were in my thoughts and prayers during that week! We are south of Greensburg and I’m fully aware of the overwhelming destruction tornados cause people! I pray you strength as you help to comfort, build up, and inspire those close to you that have suffered!
Thank you Melanie. I am great, and I felt your prayers. I truly did.
So glad you are okay Dee, you were in my thoughts that night but I was pretty sure you were out of the path it took. Scary stuff, I drove to OKC last Thursday down I40 from the Cherokee Trading Post and passed much destruction.
Sarah, I was thinking of you too with the way the weather has been. Yes, it was bad on the west side of the city. Hope all is well in the western part of the state. When you come back this way, please give me a shout, and I’ll meet you for lunch.
Dee I followed you on FB during this time and am glad you went unscathed….I lived in IN growing up and knew the fear of tornadoes as a child…we had no protection at our small school and had a couple of real scares during the day…in IN it seems they popped up in the PM and at night…you are right the night ones left me terrorized..we had a crawl space for protection at home but it never made me feel completely safe…how could it…right when you were getting tornadoes we were getting lightning and we had a strike on the house next door that ended in our basement.. Mother Nature sure has been whipping it up lately..
Donna, it can be very scary if you have nowhere to go. I wish everyone who lived in any corner of tornado land, had a shelter of some sort. Mother Nature just needs to settle down.
It certainly has been a wild year so far- the weather has been freakish and destructive, but it leaves us all the more grateful for our homes and gardens.Yours looks beautiful as usual.
Some of those videos are just plain scary- wish ppl wouldn’t take their lives into their hands like that.
Ilona, it certainly has. Thanks for saying it’s beautiful. I think it’s pretty, but not as beautiful as last year. I was rather frustrated with those folks in the video too.
Dee,
Just found your beautiful garden/blog.
We missed getting any storms here in Enid, glad to hear you and yours are safe.
I came from Australia and am trying to grow my favorite plants here.
I am trying to battle the Oklahoma winds…
I had a Cottage garden nursery (I’m a Horticulturist) and notice you have some of the little gems I grew. It gives me hope that I can grow them here in OK.
Thanks for your blog and I’ll keep checking in to see your garden and especially the roses 🙂
Paul
Hi Paul,
Thanks so much for stopping by. Our summers are a bit like Australia only flipped, but the rest of the year, no. I love cottage gardening best of all. Hope you’ll come back soon.~~Dee
I am always so amazed to see cars following those massive storms on footage like the YouTube link you provided. I’m very glad to hear all of your loved ones made it through safely. I’m also glad to hear that you don’t live in fear. My husband and I often remark that we don’t know how people live in areas where total devastation of everything they’ve come to call home is a possibility, but clearly there are ways to do so.
Me too Amy. Yup, you can lose everything here, but the areas are usually small ones. Thanks so much for coming by.
Hi Dee,
Just found your beautiful garden and blog.
We luckily missed out here in Enid, so I am glad you and yours are OK.
I came here from Australia and have been trying to ‘tame’ the Oklahoma weather (wind…). I am a Horticulturist and love cottage garden plants, roses, etc.
Your garden IS inspiring and gives me hope that I can at least have a chance at a decent garden growing some of the treasures that I love.
Hi Paul, thank you so much. You can definitely grow most of the cottage treasures. You just have to pick Oklahoma lovin’ plants. Therefore, heat and wind resistant. I’m thrilled you stopped by. Please come back soon.
Oh Dee, I cannot imagine how you must have felt not knowing if your daughter was safe. I am so glad everyone got home in time to your secure shelter. Tornados frighten me, but then I have never lived around them. Your home and gardens look so lovely. Thank goodness all is well with you and yours. I am sorry for the loss to others too. This is such a thoughtful and helpful post.
Carol, it was a bit scary there for awhile. Then, we heard her car drive up, and we knew she was safe. Thank you so much about the gardens. I think they will be pretty, but not as pretty as in the past.
Nice post and informative. Lived in NW Oklahoma during my high school days. Of course Gary England was from nearby Seiling, so he was our local celebrity. I’ve never seen him get too excited, he is so calm. We have a little ‘weather’ in southern Kansas also, not quite so bad this year. Do have an old rock storm cellar though just in case. Have a great memorial weekend. ohh and thanks for the comments on Bob the Dylan.
Thanks Greggo. Gary England is still quite the celebrity meteorologist here. I’ve only seen him excited once in 2007, I think it was. As for Bob Dylan, my husband thinks he’s the best singer-songwriter-poet ever. I’ve learned a great deal about him in the last 22 years.
Wonderful that all is well at your place. I was in Clarksdale, MS a few years back during a nighttime tornado outbreak and I was alone and scared to death (with no place safe to go either). It is something I never want to do again! But as you say, you can get used to anything, and being prepared certainly would go a long way in staying calm. The weather this year has been on the scary side… lets hope things normalize soon.
Jess, nighttime tornadoes are the most frightening because it is difficult to see where they actually are for everyone. I predict June will be hot, and everything will calm down.
I couldn’t agree with you more! We’ve lived here 22 years and we don’t live in fear either. Respect and preparedness are what it’s all about. The meteorologists here are phenominal. I will tell you that we don’t have a storm shelter…we probably need to rethink that. This year has been a doozy.
Glad to see that your beautiful home is alive and well. Your gardens are amazing. 🙂 By the way, we bought and planted a new crepe myrtle yesterday. Ha!
Thanks Stacey. It is indeed preparedness we need to remember. Living in fear only paralyzes us. It’s been a good spring other than the hail and tornadoes.
Great informative post…yet scary and sad too. Glad you were all safe and well prepared.
On another note…love your house and gardens…and had to chuckle about how you mentioned the hose in the picture. I am the same way but others tend not to even notice 🙂
happy day!
Hi Marcia, thank you. I want people to be prepared. Also, thanks about the garden. Yes, I didn’t see the hose until I processed the photo, and I was too lazy to move it and take the picture again. Wonder what that says about me?
I like this post and I agree that our weather people make all the difference in the world. I don’t live in fear either. I am always amazed by the people who are terrified by tornadoes, but do a dozen other risky things that could kill them. And I have been near enough to two earthquakes in CA to feel their power and violence. Absolutely NO warning and no where to go to get away from it.
Love, love, love your garden.
Thank you so much Mary. I’m glad you stopped by. Yeah, I’m much more scared of earthquakes although I’ve never been in one. Eeek!
Your house is gorgeous!
I really love this post. We watch all three of the stations too. During the worst of it, I was underground but since the power was still on I could stream KFOR. My kids go the Guthrie schools and I teach there. It has been a very strange week.
Joan,
It was such a strange week. You’re from Guthrie? How nice. Thank you for stopping by the blog. I hope you’ll come by again. That was one wild storm. Glad you also made it through.
Dee, I am so glad your chicks were all home and safe in the nest. The videos were certainly powerful reminders of how serious a threat we face in a tornado~Goodness gracious heading towards it makes no sense. I would be heading for a cellar or shelter. gail
Gail, me too. Weren’t those videos something else? I can’t imagine what some of those people were thinking.
I am very glad you and your family are safe. I have resolved after seeing recent tornado damage footage to never complain about the weather, at least not in the same way. Tornados are not unheard of here, and in fact we had a couple this spring and several people lost their lives in them. One quirk of this area is that tornados do not tend to stay on the ground long, and do not produce long swaths of destruction. Here they are erratic, dropping down for a few minutes then recoiling into the sky, only to drop down randomly somewhere else.
Thanks Les. We have the small ones sometimes too. They aren’t quite so scary. Oklahoma weather is never boring. That’s for sure.
I’m so glad you are safe and escaped the storms, Dee! It has indeed been a crazy month, weather-wise, and my heart goes out to all who have suffered loss in one of the many storms recently. Your information about tornadoes and what to do in case of one is very helpful. I heard on a newscast this past week that the death toll from these storms is less in Oklahoma (don’t remember the exact context here) because Oklahoma is used to tornadoes, and its residents take warnings seriously. We, too, take them seriously, especially after one devastated one of our local communities just 5 miles from us back in 96. As the tornado siren sounded Wednesday night, my husband and I along with my son and his family (who don’t have a basement) headed for the basement with flashlights and a radio. Thankfully, it passed us by, too, but you can never be too careful.
Rose, I don’t know if we’re that much better prepared or not, but I read the Joplin folks only got warning twenty minutes before. That seems almost criminal to me. We know to watch as soon as the weather looks a bit weird. Also, if there are any storms coming up, I’ll get calls from friends and family to make sure I’m watching the news. We all watch out for each other.
Not being experienced with tornadoes I am amazed people were driving into it! I was scared from here…
Well, Leslie, those folks were just nuts. If you see a tornado, you need to get away, not sit and watch. You were smart to be scared. It scared me.
I am glad to hear that you and yours are ok. It seems like this season has been a hum dinger. SCARY.
Yes, Lisa, it has been a humdinger for everyone. Rain, floods, tornadoes. Are you sure frogs won’t soon fall from the sky?
People see tornado video & think they can take one too, not realizing that most of the footage we see is shot by professional stormchasers who know what they’re doing. But even they can get caught too close. You are so right, be aware of the forecast, make sure you’re not in a car, and take cover.
SG, David Payne was too close in that one video. He almost became part of the storm instead of an observer.
Excellent information, Dee.
Thank you Carol.