Weather Watch

Have you ever been in a surreal dangerous situation. Where it is hard to believe that this danger or bad thing is really happening. It seems so improbable that you don't believe it. When we first moved here I heard a loud siren throughout the town one day. The next day the newspaper gave an explanation. We live in tornado territory and one particularly bad one killed about 8 students at the high school 3 years ago. The first Wednesday of the month they test the town warning signal in prep for tornados watches. I asked Joseph that day where he thought we should hide since we don't have a basement. He shrugged his shoulders and that was the end of his contribution to the conversation. I guess his nonchalant attitude influenced me more than it should. Today while I was getting ready for a quilting class with some friends on base I heard the siren. We had rain, thunder, and lightening but nothing that seemed dangerous to me. I recollected that it wasn't Wednesday and looked online to see what was going on. We had a tornado watch for our city. I looked outside and didn't see one. It was crazy cloud coverage but no funnels. The watch was to only go for another 10 min. so I decided that we would continue with our plans and go out. Yeah not so smart. As we drove to the base, the radio said the watch was continuing and following us out to the base. They said that the law officials had reported a tornado that had grounded 8 miles from the base. Oops, right where we were headed. As we got on base and the sirens and verbal warnings were going off throughout the base I hoped we made it quick to our destination. As I was driving, trying to focus on the road I saw the storm roaring towards us. It was unlike other storms I have seen. I have seen some pretty dark and heavy clouds with the summer storms in UT. I always felt like the mountains were there keeping them from getting out of control. The way these clouds just rolled and how dark the edges were was crazy. We hurried into the building and were immediately summoned into a small office with others. We had to stay in there for about a half an hour before the base was given a clear of the tornado watch. I never saw a tornado, but definitely experienced quite a storm. Gave me a rude awakening to A) Get my 72 hr kit together. I have most of the items, they are just scattered among the storage shelf rather than in a back pack. B) It doesn't matter how much you want to support a friend, stay home and safe. C) Take warnings seriously, you never know.