Severe Weather

[Caitlin]

Hi Joe!

There were nine tornadoes that touched down in central and southern Minnesota. Luckily I was not directly affected by them, though my friend was. She's doing alright, but it's hard putting her house back together and finding everything that was picked up and blown away.

As it turns out I wasn't able to get any pictures because my mom was, well, freaking out. So I stayed inside and watched the storms from the safety of our kitchen where my sister, our exchange student and I were making cookies.

The flat horizon is Lake Michigan!

<3 Caite

[Joe]

Hi Caite...

I'm sorry to hear that your friend was affected by a tornado. I hope that she and her family are in good spirits.

I'm glad you took your mom's advice and stayed inside! It sounded like Chi and your sister had a good time baking cookies!

Have a great Monday !

Joe

[kmsmith8]

Sorry to hear about your friend Caite.

I kind of have an interesting story from last semester that concerns severe weather.

I had just finished grocery shopping. When I was getting into my car I kind of felt like something was wrong, but I just brushed the feeling off. At the time I thought I was just scaring myself.

So I started up the car and headed out towards my parking garage (I parked in a parking garage that was about ½ miles from my apartment because it was about half as cheap as parking close.) About 5 minutes into the 15 minutes drive the tornado sirens started going off. In the back of my mind I was aware of the fact that I should immediately stop driving, but for some reason I felt like I should keep going to the parking garage (I can now identify with characters in movies that do one stupid thing after another in situations where you life could be at risk, as I did exactly the same thing. I kept grabbing on to the first solution to the problem at hand and not considering others.) So I went to the parking garage. Students can only park on the top 2 floors of the 5 story parking garage so I went up to the 4th floor (I wasn’t thinking at the time that they probably don’t enforce parking in severe weather.)

After getting out of the car I quickly discovered that the parking garage had turned into a wind tunnel. I tried to run to the stair well, but I couldn’t. So I walked as quickly as possible. I made it down the stair well pretty quickly.

There really wasn’t a safe place in the parking garage so I figured that I should go to the undergraduate library (there is an underground tunnel from the undergraduate library to the graduate library – I had noted on more than on occasion that it would be perfect for a tornado.) So I headed off to the undergraduate library (even though there was a building with a basement across the street and the library was a half a block down the street.)

The walk to the library, which usually takes a minute or two, took me over ten minutes. It really wouldn’t have been that bad (besides the fact that the tornado sirens were going off and a really big thunderstorm was blowing threw) except they were working on building a new biology building next to the library. The chain link construction fences were blowing all over the street. But I safely managed to dodge them.

Soon after I safely made it into the undergraduate library. Tornados did not end up touching down in my direct vicinity. One or two (I can’t remember) touched down a few miles north of my campus.

[Caitlin]

Hi Katie,

That's quite a story! I'm glad you made it to the undergraduate library safely and managed to dodge those chainlink fences.

Your story reminds me of one of my favorite stories my mom told me from her childhood growing up in Illinois. It was raining particularily hard one morning so my Grandmother didn't want my mom, and her sisters and brothers (only some of which who were still living at home) walking to school. Instead, she gave them a ride. The sky turned greener and greener as they got closer and closer to school. When they finally made it to school my grandmother parked next to a truck holding glass panels, which in the strong winds, was not such a good idea. However, only my mom noticed that because my grandmother and my mom's siblings were too busy trying to catch my uncle who had been blown away in the wind! :
My grandmother managed to catch my uncle and all his records (why he had them no one is sure) which had blown away.

It probably wasn't funny at the time, but every time this story comes up I can't help but laughing. It's hard for me to picture my uncle being blown away by the wind, but I certainly can picture my aunt falling out of the car when my grandmother turned a corner (another true story). Maybe I should write a book about the Wright family. I certainly have enough stories to tell...

Luckily, my friend is getting everything back in order. She says she's glad she hadn't gotten any of her school supplies or clothes yet. Also thankfully all of her family and friends are alright. It was msotly damage from the debris.

<3 Caite

[kmsmith8]

Hi Caite,

Now that you brought that story up, it reminded me of another one. I use to work at a large amusement park in northern Illinois (Great America.) I was already kind of overwhelmed this day because I had just been promoted to new management position. Anyway, I was out at the go karts shadowing somebody and a really bad thunderstorm blew in. We closed the go karts and huddled in a small kiosk to wait the storm out. And then the tornado sirens started going off and the park started making announcements that basically said they weren't going to force people to leave (at this point all rides were closed) but they weren't responsible for anybody. Needless to say, the park cleared out in about 30 minutes (this is probably a record). Thinking back on it watching the guests run around like a bunch of chickens with their heads cut off was quite an interesting situation. In the end, we abandoned the go karts and went to the most tornado proof place in the park.

Short story, but on another occurence I saw lightening hit a sign that stood in front of the park while I was at the go karts. That turned out to be pretty funny because the sign didn't work again that season.

Katie