After my nap, I got up and freshened up for my surprise dinner date with Rudy. He had reserved a babysitter and had plans to take me to our favorite no kids restaurant, Crabby’s. We enjoyed a nice meal and uninterrupted conversation.
After dinner, we stopped to get some ice cream and then thought we’d go for a drive. We started out toward War Eagle Mill to see how high the flood waters were still standing and just look around. We hadn’t been on the road too long when I got a text saying that we were under a tornado warning. WARNING – not watch. I told Rudy to turn around and head for home, then texted the babysitter and told her that we were headed home and if she heard the sirens she should take the kids into the laundry room. We high-tailed it home.
On our way home, I read the first of many Facebook messages that would be posted about an F5 tornado that devastated a large portion of Joplin, Missouri. One of my friends was posting about her son and grandchildren who rode out the storm in his truck in the parking lot of a convenience store and escaped with minor injuries. Her daughter’s college apartment suffered major damage. A former co-worker who lives in Joplin on the weekends with her new husband lost her home and was displaced to a hotel with no running water or electricity. A hospital was demolished. A WalMart, an Academy Sports and a Home Depot were flattened. Thousands of people lost their homes, their cars, their businesses and churches. Most importantly, 142 people died. Within one minute, a sleepy Midwestern Sunday evening turned into a devastated town with walking wounded, little-to-no resources and more anguish than anyone should ever have to bear.
An hour away, we were under a tornado warning.
When we got home, we sent the babysitter out the door immediately so she could get home before the storm hit. As she was getting into her car, we saw a neighborhood cat go by with a baby rabbit that it had caught. (This is the same cat that has killed a robin in our yard and then knocked the eggs out of the nest.) We thought the rabbit was dead, but when the cat put it on the ground, it took off. Rudy went over to help rescue the rabbit. When he was finally able to get the cat away from it, he got the rabbit and brought it back over to our side of the street, where he was going to take it to an empty lot and let it go. But - the rabbit had a broken back leg and when it caught its breath from being chased, it freaked out and tried to bite Rudy. He jumped and dropped the rabbit…on the sidewalk. It wiggled for about a minute and then died right there in front of us. Unfortunately, Caleb watched the whole thing. I spent the next 15-20 minutes consoling him. He was so distraught that the bunny had died. He even told me that he didn’t like that cat – the same cat that he told me he loved the day before and has called “my buddy” for a year and a half.
About the time he calmed down, the storm hit. We had put Nola to bed already, but we were keeping a close eye on the weather (remember that tornado warning?). I got busy cleaning everything out of the laundry room that I could move. Then I put all of the things that I’d really rather not lose (my laptop, external hard drive, camera case) in the dryer. Caleb also put his ZhuZhu pets in there. (Everyone has their own sense of what’s valuable, right?)
Everyone seems to want to know why I put our stuff in the dryer. Here’s my logic…if we should happen to get hit by a tornado, the dryer is the closest thing we have in our house to a safe. Granted, the door could come open and everything would go flying. Granted, the dryer could get crushed like a tin can. But…on the off chance that we just got tumbled around a little or maybe just had a little structural damage, the contents of the dryer would probably be less harmed than if they were just sitting out in the house somewhere. They aren’t likely to get wet or crushed or broken. If we had enough damage for the dryer to be destroyed, I’d just be happy that my family survived. But…if something as simple as putting those things in the dryer could give me access to all of our family photos and my camera, I’d be silly not to do it.
I put blankets on the floor and got Nola’s diaper bag and my purse. I made sure everyone had on full clothes and shoes. When the sirens went off, I got Nola out of her bed and took her and Caleb into the laundry room. We put our bike helmets on to protect our heads in case of flying debris.
We stayed in there for a while and Rudy stayed in the living room, watching the weather reports on TV. Finally, the sirens went off and we got the “all clear.” We put the kids to bed and started getting ready for bed. Just as we put our heads on the pillows, the phone rang with our weather warning. We were in the line of fire again. Shoes, bra and pants on. (Wouldn’t want to be one of those people on the news that wishes they had put their bra and pants on before the storm hit, right?) This time, we managed to transport both kids to the laundry room without ever waking them up. I laid Caleb on the blankets on the floor and he slept soundly. I held Nola in my lap and she never even stopped sucking her thumb. The kids and I sat in the dark for what seemed like forever while Rudy watched the weather guys on TV. I was uneasy the whole time, but when he came in the laundry room and put on his helmet with a somber look on his face, I got extremely nervous. Actually, I got downright scared. Rudy got down on his knees on a blanket and covered Caleb’s body with his. I became a shell around Nola and we held each other’s hands. I prayed that God would protect us. I didn’t give one thought to our things or to our home. I just prayed that he would protect our little family, hunkered in that laundry room – the only place in our house without windows or exterior walls that would hold the four of us. We could hear the hail pounding our roof and the wind howling. The peacefulness of our sleeping children did little to calm our nerves. Finally and suddenly, the hail stopped. The winds died down. Rudy took a deep breath and went to the living room to see what the radar was showing. He came back in and told me that we were in the clear. I quietly thanked God and put my babies back to bed. They never knew they were in harm’s way. That’s the way I wanted it to be.It was an eventful anniversary – not exactly what we had planned. But we were grateful to have survived it and to still be next to each other as we drifted off to sleep, knowing that our lives could have taken a major turn in that laundry room. I praised God for giving us the opportunity to weather another storm together.
