nebraska sends me off with tornadoes.

[intertribal]

I hadn't been in a tornado warning for years until last night.  That was fun.  I was planning on watching Law & Order, and we knew there were storms, and then we heard the tornado siren go off.  We went down to the basement with the cat even though it didn't look like it would touch us because the anchor on channel 8 was histrionic, and my mom's afraid of tornadoes, and I suppose so am I, and we watched the big red blob move east.  But the watch continued until 4 a.m., when I went to bed.  Tornado outbreaks happen in surrounding areas all the time but they almost never get close enough to send Lancaster County for us to get a warning.  I told my mom that there was some geographical reason why Lincoln would never get hit by a tornado.  She was doubtful.  I'm not sure it's true either.  Apparently they thought that about Waco - taking the word of some Native Americans - and then Waco was attacked and 114 people died, and their economy never recovered.  And I guess that resulted in everything else you've heard about Waco. 

There was damage, but not much; I don't think anyone died.  I guess it scared some circus elephants in Kansas.

I wonder what it is about tornadoes that scares people, including myself.  If you think about them logically they're ferocious but small and narrow and don't last too long and they usually destroy barns more than anything else.  But apparently the Tri-State Tornado, the deadliest on record in the U.S., killed 695 people in 1925 - the world's deadliest tornado belongs to (surprise!) Bangladesh, in 1989 (1300 people).  And then there's the possibility of multiple F5 or F4 tornadoes - sixteen tornadoes on the ground at the same time, 148 tornadoes in 18 hours (Super Outbreak, U.S./Canada, 1974). 

I think what it really is about tornadoes, at least for me, is what they look like, the fact they drop out of the sky.  Even little dust devils scare me in that regard, and those I've seen.  They're the only natural disaster that's a monster, a thing.  You can't really see hurricanes and earthquakes in the sense that you can see tornadoes, and although you can see volcanoes the mountain doesn't get up and chase you - the lava might, but it creeps along the ground.  But tornadoes, they're a thing you can point to and say "there be monsters" and be tempted to run from at ninety-degree angles.

Comments

[madali.livejournal.com]

I badly want to see one.

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

Dude, THE SKY IS FALLING. The heavens rain down upon us with all their fury!

Anyway, I was even a little freaked driving home from the mall at 8:30pm or so. Half of the sky was black, and half was gray clouds, and it was like they were slowly swirling to converge upon me. I half-expected to see a funnel in the distance. But, fortunately, I did not.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

That sounds creepy. I wasn't really outside at all. It is kind of fun though, to have the occasional exciting storm as long as it doesn't turn into anything. Brownie stayed with us for a while after we moved back upstairs, but then she decided the storm was no longer worth worrying about and left us.

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

I do like storms, though I'm not sure I like being in a car when they happen...

So you're there? You're in one piece? Do you have a room and all that? Is there good food?

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

(I'm assuming yes on the food)

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

Just don't get out of the car if it's lightning, and do get out if it's a tornado. This is something I only learned in the past few days from the television/my mother, which is sad since I've lived in Lincoln for a long enough time that I ought to know that.

I'm in the Hong Kong airport lounge for a long layover, so I don't know yet.

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

Ah, I knew the bit about lightning...not so much the tornado, but it makes sense.

Sorry for the over-excitedness, then. Must be an awfully long layover. I guess Pooja had a long layover in HK too on her way to India. They went outside and walked around.