It’s been one week since a column of storms rolled in from the West and changed the way I feel about the weather for good.
This time of year, it’s not uncommon for the setting sun to be followed by a line of impressive thunderstorms. They form in the plains and pick up speed and intensity as they approach the middle of the state, buffet our modest mobile home, and jostle us awake. We have, on occasion, felt the need to check the television and unplug the electronics, but it’s never been a big deal.
This was the case the evening of May 5, 2006. My father and stepmother were in town, having arrived just earlier that day. We had eaten a pleasant meal at a restaurant in town, had a nice discussion, and retired to bed. The winds picked up around 11:00 PM, and were ignored. Not a big deal, I told Donnell—just another storm.
Midnight came, and the winds continued to gain in strength. I dragged myself out of bed to check the television and saw that it had gotten nasty. Rotations had been picked up on radar to the West of us, and the towns of Gatesville and McGregor, far down State Highway 84, had suffered the effects of strong winds. Still, I wasn’t worried, as the predictions showed the storm rolling into Waco well to the North of us. I climbed back into bed at 12:15, confident that everything would be fine.
What seemed like moments later, Donnell’s cell phone rang. (Well, perhaps rang isn’t the right word. The ring tone is a clip of Goofy, stridently calling your attention to the electronic leash…) It was Pat, Donnell’s mother, urging us to check the weather again. We would, Donnell said, do just that and call her back.
It’s worth mentioning here that Pat, despite living in the Waco area for several years, still isn’t entirely used to our weather extremes. We’ll get calls urging us to find shelter whenever the wind picks up a bit, or if sudden rainfall threatens low-lying areas with flash floods. These are generally confidently dismissed.
Turning on the television, we discovered that things weren’t entirely fine. We were under a tornado warning, and reports were coming in of a tornado touching down just to the west of Waco. The tornado-spawning storm was, the meteorologist said, bearing down on the Woodway-Hewitt area, and people needed to find shelter immediately.
We live in Hewitt.
In the path of a tornado.
It was time, we decided, to take action.
The television was turned off. The cell phone was dialed, Donnell’s mother told that we were leaving immediately. My father emerged from the back room, asked “Do we need to go?” and was told “Yes, we have to get out of here.” We dressed. We gathered the FireSafe, the computer, the dog. The cat wouldn’t fare well—leaving under such stress could have done him in, so he stayed behind. I picked up a flashlight, my pocketwatch, and moved everybody out into the night.
Lightning flickered across the sky like searchlights during an air raid. To the West was a solid wall of amber-streaked clouds, boiling and angry. Little rain was falling, but it was cold and fast, cruel. The five of us piled into Donnell’s car with me behind the wheel, and we left for my office. I have no clue how fast I was driving, but I do recall that the streets were empty of people and the traffic lights were all in our favor. The rain waxed and waned as we proceeded, until two thirds of the trip were behind us. At that point, all hell broke loose.
It was, as Donnell says, like driving through water. Not like sheets of rain, or like slogging through a rain-choked gully, but rather like the car was suddenly immersed in a vast tank of rainwater. We were, we later learned, very likely driving directly into the path of the tornado. I remember driving by reflectors, which were visible only when we were just feet away from them. I remember finding first one traffic light, then the next, and then…losing everything. I know that lights were still on in the parking lot of my office, but they vanished from sight in the driving rain along with the reflectors and the driveway which I urgently needed to find, lest I miss the road and drive us into a ditch which would soon be full of water.
A flash of lightning revealed our way, and I darted into the parking lot, pulling up as close as I dared to the side entrance to our plant. We poured out of the car and into the plant, which still had electricity at that point, and then on into the office portion of the building. I don’t remember much after that point…
...the night wore on and, in time, the storm passed.
It spawned a 150-yard wide, 115mph F2 tornado which inflicted significant damage to a Coca-Cola bottling plant not far down the road. Downbursts of 80mph winds slammed down out of the clouds, tearing off roofs and uprooting masive trees. Electric poles were snapped off at the ground like matchsticks. Electricity for some people wasn’t restored until Tuesday—four days after the storm. We were lucky, in that our service was back on after just 36 hours.
And now, I keep a closer eye on the weather. I think about candles and basements, and am looking for a battery-powered radio. I used to trust the weather here. Silly me. Naive me. Nature is not to be trusted. Admired, certainly, and feared, but always with an eye to the escape route, like being in a room with a lunatic.
I don’t worry, but I plan.