Tornado Season in Texas

It is May as I sit and write this. I am working on a bit of sleep and lots of coffee. It is tornado season here in the Midwest.

Last night, right at bedtime, the town tornado sirens went off. Now, those sirens can mean a multitude of things, from straight-line winds to hail to tornados. We knew it was tornados because our phones were blowing up: “A tornado warning has been issued for your area.”

That’s fun.

What did we do?

We have a closet under the stairs. I store part of my pantry in there. But the shelves are on wheels, so out they came. Hubby graciously went and grabbed bike helmets.

And we waited.

You see, the sirens went off before the storm was in town.

By the time the storm reached us, the tornado warning had been lifted, which is good, but in a town over, they were having baseball-sized hail.

Yeah, you read that correctly: baseball size and some even bigger!

My oldest daughter works in that town. She was texting us. Her job had them take shelter.

Luckily, the storm passed quickly over us. We were on the edge of it, so while some in town had pea-sized hail, our home missed all that. My cucumbers and pumpkins are thankful!

My daughter’s car suffered a few major dings. Hail cracked the windshield, and there are dings on the roof, the hood, and the driver’s side. She should have fun dealing with the insurance.

So, where do we go from here?

The bike helmets now stay in the closet.

I also need to put one of the water storage containers in there.

I need to buy AAA batteries for the flashlights. While they were new last night, I want ones for when they aren’t.

The thing is, this is what we are prepared for. It’s not for the zombie apocalypse. It’s for these things.

No, we didn’t have a tornado last night, but we easily could have.

Right now, we are all safe and sound. The town my daughter works in had to delay school because many people still didn’t have power. There were trees down, and she said that on her drive home, trailers in her parking lot were blown over.

The important part is that we are safe.