Tornado

As I lay in my bed asleep Saturday night, my dreams were injected with a faint high pitched whining sound. The sound kept getting louder. "I think that means you need to wake up" a voice in my head said, as in my sleep I tried to figure out where the sound was coming from.

I awoke to realize it was the weather alert sirens going off. "Oh great" I thought. "I wonder how long that's going to go on?" I was not yet awake enough to realize that the sirens were not a test, but were alerting us to a real weather threat which meant I needed to take action. Groggily my body started to move. For some reason I had slept in my yoga pants and a t-shirt, not my usual sleepwear, so I was basically "dressed". Throwing back the covers I could hear the wind and trees blowing outside, the rain hiting the roof and sides of my condo with more force than normal. I think it was those sounds that finally jolted me into reality.

I remembered my friend A's words from the other day, "You're in the interior of the building surrounded by other homes, AND you have a basement. You're SAFE." His words played like a recording in my head and reassured me. As I headed for the basement stairs I spotted a pair of sketchers at the back door, the ones I normally wear to play golf. I grabbed them to put on and ran down into the basement. For some reason I went straight to the window and looked out, trying to see the exact moment the tornado would touch down. I could see my neighbor's basement lights were also on, letting me know that they were taking this as seriously as I was.

I turned away from the window and looked around the room, my mind finally grasping the entire situation and starting to think about what I needed to do. I had no chairs down there, and no folding chairs to bring down. A treadmill and an eliptical machine were placed in front of the window. I could actually lie on the treadmill, but I would have to move it away from the window. Other than that, the basement only held boxes of christmas decorations, a lamp with a fisherman's basket for the base and fish shadows on the shade, and a single bottle of red wine on a little wine rack, the beginning of my wine collection. "No, look at EVERYTHING" my mind said. My goodness my mind is so much smarter than "I" am. So I re-surveyed the room again and this time I acknowledged the roll of remnant carpet against one wall. Hmmm...

I grabbed the carpet roll and dragged it into the small closet-like space between the stairs and the innermost wall. I unrolled it and the space was instantly more inviting and comfortable: a shelter. I moved the little box containing a camp stove out of the way, hoping. My hopes were rewarded, there was an outlet back there. I brought over the plastic tub of Christmas ornaments and the fisherman's lamp, making a nightstand of them and plugged the lamp in, then ran back upstairs and grabbed my pillow and the duvet off the bed. I had my paperback copy of Jane Austen's Pride & Prejdice and a bottle of water. It was a cozy little shelter and I was ready to settle in.

Hmmm, not quite.

I needed my cell phone. Another trip upstairs. This time I also grabbed my purse and the six-pack of water I'd bought at the store that day. Back downstairs. I lay there and read a while, but the floor was too hard. I'd never get any sleep. I remembered a foam mattress I had in one of the extra bedrooms on the 2nd floor. But I didn't want to go back up there and get it. I thought of my male friends and how, if one of them were here, they would do whatever it took to make me comfortable and would go get it for me. "But I have no man" I thought. "Then you must do for yourself whatever you would want a man to do for you" said the survival instinct that had been guiding me all night. Up I went.

As I was getting the foam mattress, dumping the clothes that were stacked on it to the floor, I spotted my sleeping bag sticking out of a box. I thought it was long lost back in Chattanooga, Tennessee, but there it was right when I needed it. I grabbed it too. On the way back I grabbed a bag of Cheetos and a bag of Pepperidge Farm oatmeal raisin cookies. Back down stairs and spread out first the foam mattress then the sleeping bag. I lay down on it and it was more comfortable than my bed upstairs. "Now you have everything you need", I thought. I looked at the clock on my blackberry. I knew I'd been pressing my luck. "There are to be no more trips upstairs" said my survival instinct, quite firmly. The clock read 2:29 am.

I lay there and read for a while. I have to admit I liked the adventurous feeling of it. I was safe and comfortable and having Jane Austen to read made me feel even more secure. Just before I drifted off to sleep, I reached up and turned off the fish lamp and turned on the little flashlight I'd had in my purse, using it as a nightlight and hoping it would keep the spiders away. I slept well under the circumstances. I dreamed that the exterior wall of my basement was blown away to ground level and my neighbor's entire building was gone. When I awoke everything was in tact. I went about my normal routine and later in the morning I checked the news online to see if any of Omaha had been hit. The first tornado had touched down at exactly 2:30am.