Tornado?!?!

One of the joys of living in Maine is the fact that we rarely deal with regular catastrophic weather.  Now don't get me wrong we have a hurricane now and again, the blizzards, thunderstorms, and once in a blue moon the tornado warnings.  However, it isn't the norm around these parts.

I have lived in a place where it was the norm, and it was quite a different experience.  For college I went to school in southern Missouri.  It was definitely a culture shock my first year there.  However, I learned to love the experience of living in a new and different place.  One thing I wasn't a huge fan of were the possibilities of tornados.  Once a week we had a test of the tornado sirens, which was a strange a foreign thing for me.  However, it was more than necessary to learn about this siren and what to do when it occurs.

It was good that we did know what to do because several times during my college years we did have tornados.  I can remember being an RA at an RA dinner outside of town when suddenly our RD got the phone call that there was a tornado warning in our area.  With all the RA's and RD's off campus there was a mad rush to get back to the dorms and secure the rest of the students.  I remember getting onto my floor and instructing my girls to get decent and calmly make their way to the first floor on the north side of the building.  As we sat in the hall against the brick wall I remember thinking, ya this is not my cup of tea.

The other time this happened was when I was student teaching.  Now there is an experience I will never forget.  Tornado drills out there are the same as our fire drill, kids quickly do what they need to do in an orderly fashion.  So, this wasn't any different, except it wasn't a drill.  We quickly got the children into the hallway.  They kneeled down, faced the wall and then bent over and put there hands over their head.  It by far was the strangest thing I had ever experience.

So, why am I suddenly writing about tornados?  Well, yesterday as I was Just hanging out at my house, painting my toenails, my phone began to make a strange beeping sound.  It sounded like the emergency signal that you hear on the radio.  The beep wouldn't stop, so, I picked up the phone expecting it to say thunderstorm warning, as it was so humid and storms were predicted, instead it said tornado warning!  I quickly messaged colleagues and my mom that lives near by to see if they got one.  I then got my two dogs and headed for the basement.  Soon I was informed that a tornado was heading for Spurrs Corner in Otisfield.  This corner is five minutes from my house at the bottom of my road!  I sat on the basement floor far away from the windows and waited, getting updates from my colleagues and mom to the time it was supposed to hit.  I watched the clock and waited, finally, an all clear was sent from my mom.  The tornado had fizzled out and it was safe to leave the basement.   Praise God no one was hurt, and the storm never really formed.  The dogs and I emerged from the basement, and I was grateful for a regular thunderstorm.

Picture from a friend on Facebook - near the causeway