Where I'm From

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The warm afternoon sun plays peek-a-boo with white fluffy clouds on a beautiful spring day. The breeze rustles the newly blossomed leaves on the cottonwood tress. A large green tractor can be seen in the nearby wheat field, rolling wheat into large round bales of hay. Black and white dairy cows can be heard mooing as they wait for the farmer to

Comments

[rayaso]

What a great description, and so well told! I think I have seen film of that tornado. It was horrific. Living in a tornado zone must be frightening at times. I liked your description of life on the farm. Earthquakes can do a lot of damage when they hit, but the cumulative damage caused by tornadoes is immense.

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When it comes to the description of the farm, that is pretty much where I lived. We didn't own a farm, but there was a dairy farm next door to the east, and to the west is a huge wheat field. Across the street (south) was more farm land and my nearest neighbor. In the backyard (north) there was the woods that would lead to the South Canadian River (I don't know why it was called that in Oklahoma as I'm pretty sure it doesn't go to Canada).

Every spring, pretty much every Oklahoman is on alert.

[kajel]

We moved to Kansas just a few months after an F5 created and hour long 46 mile path of destruction that went right through McConnell AFB. We didn't get off scott free in the five years we did live there. We had a small tornado pass two blocks from the house we were living in in 92 or 93.

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Kansas is really bad about tornadoes too. Kansas, Texas, Oklahoma, and Missouri are considered tornado alley.

[eternal_ot]

It reminded me of the earthquakes in my area. Loved the first paragraph, really well written!

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Thank you! Though, from my understanding, Oklahoma now has earthquakes now too. Tornadoes and earthquakes. What a combination.

[halfshellvenus]

What an incredible story!

I grew up on the West Coast, where tornadoes hardly ever happen (and never with such devastation). The three years I lived in Illinois, I learned to worry about tornadoes and I spent a lot of time in the basement, but the tornadoes always died down before reaching Peoria.

Your, town, though... I cannot fathom why your Dad was so calm, and while a closet under the stairs was not ideal, it looks as if that might have saved you, had you not had a neighbor with a good shelter. What a horrific thing to live through!

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Thankfully, I live in Washington now. I don't have to worry about the weather so much. A few months ago, they were predicting a really bad wind storm, and I found myself getting excited. I might not like tornadoes, but I do enjoy thunderstorms. The west coast does not have decent thunderstorms. Well, that wind storm turned into a dud, in which I was extremely disappointed.

I think my dad was so calm mostly because he had probably been through something like this before. He was never one to talk about his past, so I don't know if he had been through a tornado before or not. He is also a navy man, so maybe that had something to do with it.

[majesticzaichik]

Wow intense! Oklahoma is renowned for having crazy tornadoes. Glad you survived that one..

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I remember that May 3rd was the beginning of the really intense and crazy tornadoes. There have been a lot of close calls after that day.