The Sirens

Let me just say that I hate the sirens.

I hate the sirens that we hear every spring in this area. We get bad storms at this otherwise beautiful time of year, and the sirens mean tornadoes.

***

So leaving THEBOY's daycare this evening, after the fine day off I'd had, we heard the sirens. He noticed them, and thought we were hearing police. No, I told him, this was something else.

As we pulled away from the school, I saw four vehicles parked under the awning. And the awning only extends over the sidewalk. I knew something was up.

FM radio didn't do a damn thing to enlighten me as I scanned the grey skies (the AM function doesn't work). Yeah, looked bad for sure.

Just after fetching THEGIRL from her class, a daycare employee ran through the building blowing a whistle. The sirens were blaring again, and she explained that it's school policy to take shelter when that happens. Not only that, but a tornado had been spotted one city over in Hurst. That happens to be the city we live in.

So everyone in the building was ushered into a couple different bathrooms. My kids and I had a fairly big bathroom to ourselves. My mind was racing. I sent a couple text messages, tried to make some phone calls... I couldn't connect.

And then came the sound of pounding on the roof. Yeah, it was hail all right, and the van was out in it. Crap crap crap.

I resigned myself to the fact that the van was going to get smashed to bits; it was LOUD.

We stayed in that room for about 15 minutes. I tried to give THEBOY some idea of the reality of the situation without frightening him too much, or losing my own cool.



***

Finally we were led out of the restroom. I looked out the window, and the playground was covered in golfball-sized hail.

So I told the kids to wait inside for me as I checked out the van. Amazingly, no glass was broken. It's got a number of pock marks from the hail, but from what I can tell it's not that bad.

***

I saw that I had multiple voicemails on my phone, but I couldn't connect to retrieve them for a while. We decided to wait in the daycare for a bit, as we were unsure whether the line of storms had passed us completely.

***

Finally I heard MOBB's voicemail: She was home, but had just driven beneath a rapidly swirling funnel cloud not five minutes from our home. In fact, it was over the Hurst/Bell train station, where I went most weekdays for years during my commute to Belo.

Her car had been pounded too.

***

Finally we got home. The news said the line of storms was past us altogether, so heck, we headed out for Tex Mex.

Lots of folks tried to reach us during that crazy stretch when the storms were pounding the area, and I want to say thank you to all those folks. I've managed to reach a few of them by phone since then.

Our neighborhood looks like a giant hedge trimmer went through the trees. Leaves and limbs and other debris are everywhere. Tomorrow morning I'll check out MOBB's car and the roof the see what damage there is. I had a quick look at her car in the rain earlier, and I couldn't find any damage. I'll be stunned if dodged that particular bullet.

***

Ya'll take care. Stay safe.