You don't see many tornadoes in New Jersey...
... but you do in Texas.
When I was about four, we lived in a trailer park in San Antonio Texas (we were poor). I have this one distinct memory of my first tornado.
My cousins and I were playing outside on our plastic big wheels, not caring about the winds that were picking up and the heavy storm clouds building darkly above our heads.
My mom comes running out of the mobile home, my dad close behind, carrying my crying toddler sister, strapping her into a car seat.
The loud warning sirens start up with a wail, drowning out my mom as she's screaming at me to come here right now. She was frantic, "There's a tornado coming, get in the car, we're going to grandmas," she's yelling, grabbing me off my bike and pushing me into the car as I stare out the window fascinated with the sky.
The sky turns green, and we drive through hail and rain, thunder and lightening to grandmas house, the winds rocking the car the whole way.
It wasn't scary then, but when I think about it now, it is.
Last week, on a vacation to Dallas Texas, I had my second tornado experience.
Shizz and I were in a restaurant, thunderstorms had been battering Dallas for the last few days. Were eating lettuce wedges, watching out the windows as a storm hits.
It starts with a thunderstorm. The cable TVs blink out in the restaurant.
Sheets of heavy rain pour down outside, instantly flooding the roads, a leak springs from the ceiling at the table next to us and fat drops splat onto the vinyl booth.
Big bolts of lighting crack down loudly. The sky turns dark, then green, then the winds builds up, whipping around outside against the building, ruffling the awnings and throwing the rain harder against the building.
We're talking about how scary it is and worrying about driving back to the hotel in this mess...
By the time we're ready to leave, the storm has died down, and it's moving in a distinct black cloud that were driving away from on our way back to the hotel room.
In the elevator, I check my phone (it was on silent), there are five missed calls, a voice mail and a frantic text from my mother, "Tornado touched down, warnings came over TV, it's going to hit here in 30 mins where are you!!??"
The storm we had just drove away from was headed toward our hotel.
I show Shizz the message and we run into the hotel room where Mom and my sister Jess are gathering things (books, makeup, in case the tornado is boring, or if they need makeup?? I couldn't figure that one out).
"We're going to Lisa's! The hotel people called and said everyone needs to get down to the lobby!"
We were on the third floor.
We look out the window at a heavy cloud in the distance and see what we believe was a funnel cloud. The kind that precedes the skinny tornado arm.
We took pictures...
We ran to Lisa's house across the street.
We put on the TV and every channel had strips of warnings running along the bottom, middle, top of the screen, with words like tornadoes, pocket-change sized hail (nickles, dimes??) thunderstorms, strong winds.
Then the emergency broadcast system bleeeeep-bleeep-bleeps, followed by an electronic voice broadcasting the same warnings.
We decide to keep an eye on the storm from the windows and to play Mortal Combat vs. DC Universe. I get blisters. We figure, if we're going to die in a tornado, there's not much we can do about it, right?
We didn't get hit by the tornado, but the storm we did get hit with was intense.
Later, we checked the news and saw that the tornado had indeed touched down in Dallas (thank god Dallas is big and it missed our hotel), at the stadium, and knocked down a tent where football players were practicing. READ THE NEWS STORY
We just got hit with a flood of rain, strong winds, thunder, lightening. No pocket-change sized hail.