Tornados and Scary-Cat Dogs

Saturday was heart-pounding scary. Early afternoon the emergency sirens started ringing and they didn’t quit for nearly two hours. We were under a tornado warning---the get-down-in-your-basement kind of warning. I can see the siren for most of the township from my front yard so you can imagine how loud it gets. The dog is used to the five minute monthly testings of the siren but the longer it went on the more freaked out Levi got and it didn't help that I was running around gathering up emergency supplies. I wish I had thought about stuffing a pair of foam ear plugs in his ears. I have some left over from when my husband’s bi-pap machine kept me awake. I keep a duffle bag in the basement of basic emergency stuff, plus the dog’s travel cage from the days when I actually traveled is down there but the emergency weather band radio, a Colman lamp and a flasher for the dog’s collar I keep upstairs for power outages. I also threw in a bag my purse, cell phone, hearing aids, shoes (I was wearing Crocs), water bottles, a computer password list, essential medications and my car keys. All the time I was gathering up stuff I had the TV on in the kitchen at full volume so I could follow the heavy rainstorm and tornado sightings as they made their way up from the southeast part of the county. I was in a direct path and it was due to hit my neighborhood at 2:45. 

At 2:30 I tried to get the dog to go down the fifteen steps to the basement but he wouldn’t do it! He’d never been down more than three steps in his entire life and he picked that time to show me his stubborn schnauzer genes. I put the leash on Levi and it’s a wonder he was still breathing or didn’t have a few broken bones after I dragged him to the basement. Once down, Levi liked it better because the siren wasn’t so loud. My little nest of supplies was in the corner of the basement but I sat on the bottom steps where I could still hear the TV and follow the tornado sightings as they tracked near-by before leaving the county. But the weather people stressed that everyone should stay in our safe places because conditions were right for other, rain-wrapped tornadoes to form within the storm still going on and you can't see those kinds of tornadoes coming at you. 

When the all clear came and the sirens stopped, Levi didn’t want to come upstairs. I pulled and pushed until I thought I’d either hang him or he’d topple me over backward. I’d get him up two steps and he’d manage to get back down one. It took forever to get him upstairs and we were both stressed out when we finally made it. He weighs 29 pounds and I can’t carry him under normal circumstances and on steps I have to hold onto the rail for dear life for me to feel safe. The next time we have to do the tornado thing, I’ve got to remember to get his seatbelt harness out of the car so I can drag him by the middle of his body rather than a leash attached to his collar. 

We were lucky in my county. No one died. There was lots of damage caused by trees getting uprooted or snapped off taking power lines down---27,000 were left without electricity, 40,000 if we include all six counties where rain, high winds and tornadoes tore through. Of the six confirmed tornadoes that struck statewide, two of them hit the metro area where I live. The closest one was only on the ground for ¾ of mile and 150 yards wide before it pull up a couple of miles short of my neighborhood---a small EF0 but still destructive. Years ago, my husband’s family farm got hit by two tornadoes ten years apart. With the last, only one wall of the house was left standing and when they cut a clothesline between a tree and what was left of the house, that wall fell in. A birthday cake sat on the kitchen table untouched by the devastation around it. 

This is the first time since my husband died that we’ve had a tornado warning so it was the first time I’ve gone to the basement in this house. We’d huddle in our hallway with quilts over our heads because I wasn’t about to leave a wheelchair bound guy all alone upstairs while I saved myself in the basement. Honestly, it unnerved me to be downstairs thinking that the rest of the house could come crashing down on top of me. And if I got trapped down there with no power causing the sump pump to stop working, I’d probably drown. Okay, the power would have to be off for a long time for that to happen but if I was writing a script for a disaster movie that’s the way it would go down. Or I’d come up from the basement to find a horse standing in the living room and no roof overhead. Remember the 1996 Helen Hunt movie, Twister, where the cow got sucked up by a tornado? That actually happened on my husband’s farm with one of their horses. They watched it go over the tree line and a few days later the local police brought it back home in a trailer. He was found a couple of miles away…dazed but otherwise unharmed.

My brush with Mother Nature was nothing compared to what’s going on with the flooding down south or the fires out west but I have a healthy respect for the power of tornadoes, so I was scared right alongside of my scary-cat dog. Next time, though, if I can’t get Levi to go downstairs when the sirens goes off I may go back to nesting in the hallway. ©

Thankfully, my neighborhood did not have any damage what so ever. But these photos were all taken in the metro area where I live. The two tornadoes that touched down were rated EF1 and EF0. The stronger one was on the other end of town.

Edited to add: I just saw a news story about 17 baby squirrels that are being cared for by a wildlife rehab place. They were all found on the ground in the tornado hit areas and are being fed dog milk formula every four hours. Most were really tiny and would not survive without their mom's.

Snow Days and Widow Wishes

Years ago when my husband had a commercial snow removal business he called snowflakes pennies from heaven. If that were actually true I’d have a million dollars stacked up in my yard, on my deck and straining my roof. It’s well over two foot deep in areas that haven’t been touched by a shovel, even deeper in the drifts. We haven’t had a plow come down my street in almost a week and they say it will be a few more days before the city gets to all the side streets. The list of cancellations keeps crawling across my TV screen and it looks like the entire city is staying home with me. Even my hair salon called to cancel about two minutes before I was going to call them to do the same. Needless to say, I’m not going anywhere anytime soon.

The first day of our snow storm, a couple from down the street who I’ve never met before rang my doorbell. They were on the way to the grocery store and wanted to know if I needed anything. They said they hadn’t seen any activity around my house in recent days and wanted to make sure I was alright. After I thanked them for stopping and assured them that it was just a bad cold keeping me inside, they handed me a piece of paper with their phone numbers on it. They’d also been down to my mailbox and handed me several days’ worth of mail and newspapers. As they left, I couldn’t help tearing up---tears of both gratitude and sadness. I’m grateful that people do notice and keep track of me, even if I’m not aware of them doing it. Since Don passed away there have been many times when I’ve thought that I could be died for weeks before anyone would miss me.

But the neighbors stopping made me sad as well as grateful because it signals that I’m now officially old enough that others feel the need to look out for me, the elderly woman living alone on the block. It doesn’t seem like all that many years ago that Don and I were the ones looking out for the elderly people living nearby. I used to have a clock that had an inscription on its face that read: “The seeds of today are the flowers of tomorrow.” I guess those seeds we planted in the universe so many years ago when Don and I would rake leaves or shovel snow for elderly neighbors have bloomed and it’s time to tend my garden. Next summer, I decided, I need to spend more time on my front patio instead of my back deck. I need to walk the dog on my block more often instead of always going to the nature trail. I need to get to know my neighbors better. I can’t get any younger and someday a kind neighbor keeping track of me from afar could save my life.

When I was a kid snow days meant we’d get to put on our snowsuits and built snow forts in the yard or go sledding or ice skating. As teenagers my brother and I went tobogganing, ice skating and even ice fishing. In my twenties I took up downhill skiing---mostly for the social life at the lodges--and snowmobiling. When I first met Don in my late twenties he bought a snowmobile so we didn’t have to keep borrowing one from my folks. We even tried cross-country skiing. I loved, loved, loved snowmobiling especially at night when we’d go on the groomed trails through the woods around Michigan. Along the trails were places we could stop for chili, hot chocolate, etc., and we often traveled in groups of five to ten snowmobiles. Sometimes we'd turn our machines off at the top of high hill and just enjoy the tranquility and beauty of the moonlit, snowy meadow while drinking coffee from a steaming thermos.

A snowstorm, in the past, meant fun was coming close on its heels. But as Don’s snow removal business grew we could no longer burn the candle at both ends by playing and working in the snow with no time to sleep in between. Everything has its season and my season of snow related fun is now limited to good memories and maybe a horse-drawn carriage ride at the sculpture garden should I find someone to go with me. But I’ll admit that when I was at the L.L.Bean website this week and I saw some adult snow pants, for a fleeting moment I thought about buying them so I can revert back to building stuff in the snow. There are some amazing snow sculptors out there and wouldn’t it be fun to be one of them? Wouldn't that give the neighbors something to talk about! The crazy, old widow who wishes she could be a kid again. ©

* The photo above is of me, my brother and his friend, taken in 1952.