How to Prepare for a Tornado

Guess what? When you live in Oklahoma, and you go to your child's awards assembly, the principal begins the assembly with an overview on the plan for a tornado...

Which would NOT be a drill!

Of course, the storm did not come during the drill.

All day on Wednesday, the news was warning everyone to have their "disaster plan" in place for a tornado. The storm was predicted to begin around 3pm. I thought I'd share my disaster plan with you...

Clean the whole house. Wednesday is my only free day, and if we don't have a big storm that comes and blows the whole house away, the mess will still be there.

Do 6 loads of laundry, including my mother-in-law's. Please pray for my father in law. He's been in the hospital since May 10th. I got a kick out of her coming by and dropping off laundry, showering and grabbing a quick nap before returning to her bedside vigil. Read here: bossing Tom around and doing all of the nurses work for him. Her dropping off laundry is kind of like everything coming full circle.

Shower around 3pm. The storms a comin' and who knows when I might get another chance!

Cook dinner. Try to be relaxed and happy as they forecast a very dangerous storm north of us and another that is "organizing" southeast of us, heading northwest... Try to be subtle in hustling your family through the meal.

Check out the radar. The storm is 30 minutes away.

Have the girls take a quick shower. No sense in them sitting staring at the TV, making themselves sick.

Start cleaning the kitchen...The phone rang.

We are subscirbed to our local emergency preparedness system, and they call with alerts...Studmuffin announces "We're under Tornado warning."

I freak out and go to hustle the kids out of their showers...Only to discover they decided to shower together for some weird reason... They hate showering together, and typically refuse to do it. Start screaming like a banshee to hurry up and get the shampoo out of their hair and get out of the shower.

Have a battle of wills with Popcorn on how fast she is going to hurry, and resist the urge to snatch her by the hair and drag her under the shower spray and out of the tub...I resisted the urge.

But barely.

When that child buckles down, it is a terrible thing to behold...

Gather bicycle helmets, flashlights, blankets, jackets, and make sure they're all in the bathroom, our "safe room."

Studmuffin then says, "Calm down! What's your big deal? The storm is still 15 minutes away. Do you want to go the community shelter?"

WHAAAT?!!!

"I thought you said 'tornado warning' when you answered the phone!"

"Oh. Sorry. That was just telling us about one south of us, and that it's headed this way."

Grrrrr...

So.

I calmed down.

And watched the news. The storm was going to go south of us.

I decided to go do what any good Okie does in the event of severe weather.

I went and stood on my front porch and stared at the sky.



Earlier in the day Popcorn had said, "I hope God surrounds our house with a thousand rainbows to protect us from the tornadoes!"

Then she burst out laughing because she had meant to say angels, but apparently, rainbows are pretty good too!