TORNADO WARNING

"...and, behold, there came a great wind from the wilderness..." (from Job 1:19)

I guess an extended trip to Springfield, Missouri would not be complete without a full blown tornado warning! On Friday morning, May 8, I awoke to a very rainy and dark day. My daughter Amy and son-in-law David had already left for work. Sam, the Jack Russell Terrier was whining and unhappy. He followed me everyplace in the house. After shaving and showering, I made myself coffee and breakfast. I turned on the television set. At 8 a.m. the local NBC affiliate indicated that a very strong line of thunderstorms would hit within the next hour. The broadcast warned that 70 M.P.H. winds were not out of the question, but that it was unlikely there would be tornadoes associated with the fast moving storm. Amy's house is almost directly across the street from one of the city's tornado warning sirens. Just a few minutes later, the tornado siren began to sound. It was very loud! Outside it was dark, windy, raining, and thunder could be heard from the distance.

"I guess they're just sounding that alarm because of the high winds that are expected," I thought.

I thought wrong.

Suddenly, the announcement came over the television:
"A tornado warning has been issued for Greene County." (Greene County includes the city of Springfield.) Amy's house has no basement, so I went into the bathroom and got in the bathtub. The television announcement continued: "A tornado was spotted on the ground in Republic. It is expected to be in Battlefield at 8:15 and in southeast Springfield at 8:25."

Amy's house is located in east central Springfield and Amy works at Cox South Hospital in southeast Springfield. I was in the bathtub, praying softly, and feeling apprehensive.

At 8:25, I heard the following announcement over the television: "The system has just passed over Cox South Hospital. The report indicates it had a rotating, corkscrew formation. If you're in that part of the city, take cover now."

Immediately, the electricity went out, and it would not come back on for almost five hours. At 8:30, Amy called me on my cell phone. She was in the hallway with patients and was fine, and the hospital had no apparent damage.

The wind and darkness seemed to let up. I came out of the bathroom and looked around. A few small tree limbs had fallen, but things did not look too bad. Suddenly, at 9 a.m., the area was hit with hurricane force winds for about ten minutes! (I went back into the bathroom!) Then, as suddenly as it all came, it was gone. Several very large tree limbs had fallen on Amy's property.

I DID notice that the sky was a sickly yellow-green color. I've often heard that the sky looks like that when tornadoes take place. I then heard police and fire sirens in the distance, coming from all directions. I later took a walk and saw that several properties in the neighborhood had substantial tree damage.

Later, while watching the evening news, we learned that at least two Missouri residents had lost their lives during the tornado outbreak; several homes had been leveled, while others had sustained massive damage. At a high school just north of Springfield, an entire exterior brick wall had fallen. No students were in the room (the school's new weight room) at the time. At one home some distance east of Springfield a man had come up from his basement to find a radio when the tornado hit and caused substantial damage to his home. He was grateful to have survived and he learned the hard way about the importance of staying in a protected space during a tornado warning!

I was grateful to God that everything came out well for most of us in the area, but this was a reminder of how quickly things can change in this life. For longterm Ozarks residents, tornado warnings are just a part of life. On Saturday morning, people were out shopping and going about their business like nothing unusual had happened; but for me, this tornado warning experience helped make my month in the Ozarks quite exciting.