Last night there was a violent thunderstorm that rolled through our area. Usually I love thunderstorms and enjoy falling asleep to them. But this one was pretty intense, with strong winds, tons of lightening and intermittent periods of torrential rain - making me seriously wonder if our roof would be torn off. I had only just begun to fall asleep when at 1:15AM the tornado siren went off! I turned my alarm clock radio on, and just at that moment the emergency broadcast system was on telling people in our county to seek shelter immediately.
I don't know if I've mentioned these things on the blog before, but in the Midwest they've got these huge outdoor sirens that go off when a tornado has been seen in the area. They spin around so that people in all directions can hear them, so it gets louder and quieter as it turns. They actually have a sample sound on the Monroe County website about halfway down the page - we get the "steady wail".
Anyway, we had to get up and head to our most interior room (the downstairs bathroom) and huddled with the dog and a radio until the siren stopped. Binsey was jumping all around, and I thought for a moment maybe she's got that sixth sense and knows there's a tornado nearby, but really she was just excited that she got to hang out with us in the middle of the night. Thankfully, we were not hit by a tornado and got to go back to sleep (or at least get back into bed) about 15 minutes later.
Let's hope tonight is less eventful!
Showing posts with label tornados. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tornados. Show all posts
Monday, February 28, 2011
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
We're not in Kansas, but we still have tornado warnings
The past two nights we've had tornado sightings near Bloomington. Now I love a good storm, especially when I'm at home with some tea, but it's not so much fun when I'm out somewhere else.
On Monday night, I was working at the survey call center (that dreaded mandatory assignment for my PhD program) when the tornado alarm went off in the building, an old 10+ story limestone dormatory. There was an announcement in the building and we all had to go into the elevator area in the center of the building until the warning was over. Someone had a fancy phone and got the weather forcast from it, and reported that the tornado was spotted west of Bloomington and the storm was headed toward the campus, first going right through our neighborhood. So I borrowed someone else's phone (of course mine didn't get reception) and called Paul, who was taking a nap at home. Thankfully there was no damage to our neighborhood, but Paul and Binsey waited it out in the downstairs bathroom anyway. Here's a shot Paul got of the double rainbow that happened right after the storm. I could only see a single rainbow from the call center, so I'm jealous!
The second tornado warning was last night.We'd happened to order pizza just before the siren went off, so we had just enough time to go pick it up and then go back and wait out the storm again. We could barely hear the siren, even standing outside. It sounded almost like someone's air conditioner was malfunctioning. If I hadn't heard the announcement on TV, I don't know if we would have known anything was going on. While we didn't get a tornado, we got a really loud and rumbly storm with torrential rain. So much that we got a fairly fast flowing river through our back yard and into our neighbor's yard!
At first I thought that was a bad thing, having all that water go through our yard and maybe leave sediment, but then I realized our next door neighbor (upstream) goes nuts with his lawncare, so all the fancy stuff he's been putting all over his lawn is probably now in ours! So that's not so bad after all!
On Monday night, I was working at the survey call center (that dreaded mandatory assignment for my PhD program) when the tornado alarm went off in the building, an old 10+ story limestone dormatory. There was an announcement in the building and we all had to go into the elevator area in the center of the building until the warning was over. Someone had a fancy phone and got the weather forcast from it, and reported that the tornado was spotted west of Bloomington and the storm was headed toward the campus, first going right through our neighborhood. So I borrowed someone else's phone (of course mine didn't get reception) and called Paul, who was taking a nap at home. Thankfully there was no damage to our neighborhood, but Paul and Binsey waited it out in the downstairs bathroom anyway. Here's a shot Paul got of the double rainbow that happened right after the storm. I could only see a single rainbow from the call center, so I'm jealous!
The second tornado warning was last night.We'd happened to order pizza just before the siren went off, so we had just enough time to go pick it up and then go back and wait out the storm again. We could barely hear the siren, even standing outside. It sounded almost like someone's air conditioner was malfunctioning. If I hadn't heard the announcement on TV, I don't know if we would have known anything was going on. While we didn't get a tornado, we got a really loud and rumbly storm with torrential rain. So much that we got a fairly fast flowing river through our back yard and into our neighbor's yard!
At first I thought that was a bad thing, having all that water go through our yard and maybe leave sediment, but then I realized our next door neighbor (upstream) goes nuts with his lawncare, so all the fancy stuff he's been putting all over his lawn is probably now in ours! So that's not so bad after all!