May 15th was rough. We've had a relatively calm spring here in north Texas. Unusually calm. Everything changed that night. We had a massive tornado outbreak. Our county was under a tornado warning for several hours. Every time we thought it had passed and we were in the clear, another warning would be issued. I was driving home around 7:45 that night. Near the beginning of the outbreak. The sky was ugly green and clouds were definitely swirling. I had no idea at that point just how close we'd be to the center of the storms within the next couple of hours. Multiple tornadoes touched down. One within about 10 miles from my house. A massive one. One mile wide. I heard rumors the next morning that 10 people are dead and 14 others missing. Schools were closed. Many houses are leveled. There's so much damage.
We spent the majority of the night running back and forth between the tv and our storage under the stairs.
It was supposed to be a low key night. Wednesdays are date nights in our house. This one was a bit unusual already because my dad was scheduled to have surgery the next morning. I had to have him there by 5:30 am, so I planned to chill in bed and watch a little mindless tv and crash early.
It didn't happen. As one storm would pass, another would erupt out of nowhere. We seemed to be in the direct path for hours. At one point, we opened our back door to hear our talking emergency sirens that the city has. Under the sound of the siren, we could hear a low, steady rumble. Like distant thunder that never really stopped. I had heard sounds like that pretty often in our old house. But, not in this one. This house is far quieter than the old one. In the old house, we lived fairly close to railroad tracks and you could hear the low rumble on the engines for miles. And then a horrible thought hit Jose and I at the same time. People always say tornadoes sound like trains. I am fairly certain, at that moment, we were hearing a tornado or at the very least a funnel cloud baring down. Thankfully, other than some yard stuff being blown around, we saw no real damage. Our neighbors to the south and west weren't so lucky. A friend of mine lives immediately where one of the big tornadoes touched down. I took a chance a texted her and she said they were hiding in the bathroom. They all made it out ok, but I believe they had damage to their home and were without power for few days. Scary stuff.
Jose and I have been through 2 tornadoes together. One was while driving to San Antonio for a weekend trip. Not too terribly far south from where we live now, we encountered torrential rain so strong we literally couldn't see the 18 wheeler in front of us. Then the wind picked up and was blowing the 18 wheeler all over the road. I think we finally took cover under an overpass (now we know that's the worst thing you can do!) and waited to calmer weather. I have never seen rain blow so horizontally or been so blinded by rain. When we came back through a few days later, all the billboard metal signs were blown straight back and bent like a paperclip.
Then there was the March 2000 tornado in downtown Fort Worth. We lived about 3 miles east of downtown at the time, in Meadowcreek. We had been watching something on the VCR (shows how long ago that was!) so didn't have live tv on. When the show ended, we were going to leave the house. Right before we walked out, the phone rang. My grandmother telling us we were under a tornado warning. We turned on the news just in time to be told to seek immediate shelter. Now, I grew up in tornado alley. With a dad who was obsessed with weather. We watched The Weather Channel like it was a blockbuster movie. I learned to be fascinated with storms. Tornado Warnings for me usually mean one of two things. 1.) Go on about your regular day. Warnings happen so often, we barely pay attention. Or 2.) Go outside and play meteorologist and determine for yourself what is happening and if we are really in danger. That's how we roll....
But in 2000, when we saw just how close that tornado was to us and the fact that it was barrelling right for us, we chose to take a look from safely inside the house. It was like a scene out of The Wizard of Oz. As soon as we opened the door, there was debris flying everywhere. The sky was literally littered. The door was sucked out of Jose's hand and slammed shut. We grabbed the dog, our wedding album, a flashlight and a twin mattress and hunkered down in our bathtub. We could definitely feel the wind and the house rock. What we learned later is that the tornado lifted briefly as it passed over the hill we lived on. It destroyed a manufacturing plant less than a mile to our west and an apartment complex was heavily damaged one exit to out east. We had a grill thrown across the yard, a broken outdoor light, missing lawn chairs and shingles scattered throughout the yard. Most of which, I am certain weren't ours.
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