I live in a mini tornado alley

I didn’t make that up; I do live in a mini tornado alley. More often than an actual tornado is the warning that conditions are favorable for a tornado to form. If one does form, the population has been alerted to take precautions, to get to a place of shelter.

Folks who live in mobile homes are advised to seek alternate shelter. Yeah, right! Actually, I do have an alternate, the old house. Kay knows I will come right through the basement garage door, probably with one neighbor.

The all night rain Saturday, that was a quarter inch in the rain gauge in yesterday’s blog, never quit. It rained harder and harder. It got colder and colder. The wind blew, fiercely. Sometimes we could hear the rain had become pellets of sleet, sometimes it was just rain.

Laura and I went nowhere, except to poke our noses out for a minute and gauge the depth of the bitterness. She did laundry, I cleaned the kitchen. We read. She watched television. Simultaneously, we jumped from our chairs to the sound of the tornado warning.

I went to the door and tested it against the wind. Howling wind. I dared not open the screen door. I called my neighbor. “Tornado warning, and I’m not leaving. You get in your master closet in the bedroom!”

“I thought we should get in the bathtub!”

“No, no Cathy. The bathtubs are on outside walls, and beside, they’re very light weight. Get in your closet!”

“I’m going to text Dan, where should we hide.”

Dan is the maintenance man. He doesn’t live here.

A minute later, a text in the depth of our master closet. “Dan says hide wherever we want. I’m in the closet.  What are those sirens?”

The tornado sirens are mounted about a mile north. They were loud. The all clear came twenty minutes later. Laura and I had been watching the progression of the front on our phones. I’m going to find a local radar program for my tablet. Street by street radar!

This will be our third summer here. There was a “take cover” warning the first summer, and none last year, as I recall. This year I need to be more serious and learn some things. On the internet I find there are two wind zones, areas that suffer hurricanes and all other. That’s no comfort.

Mobile homes must be stabilized and fastened to the ground according to the wind zone and type of manufacture. I see that all mobile homes must meet hurricane standards. That’s good.  I also find to be sure we are tied down safely, I should contact my local building inspector for an inspection. I jotted the phone number on my desk pad, and that will happen soon.

Three and three quarter inches of rain, yesterday and overnight.