Gratitude Day 17

The year I was 7, on Palm Sunday, a series of tornadoes and storms created devastation in the area around us.  Although our town where I grew up got downed power lines and trees, and yes, we hit the basement with our batteried radios, some of the surrounding areas didn't fare so well.  People were killed, homes, churches and businesses were leveled.  The mention of the Palm Sunday Tornadoes still make people around here shake in their boots, almost 50 years later.   Some still don't want to speak of it.  My husband as a kid, went through one of the two waves of tornadoes and was lucky to live to speak of it.  Maybe its why he has been on the Fire Department for the last almost 40 years.

The lake region that we now live 5 miles away from, got hit the hardest.  First of all, cottages aren't known to typically have basements.  Palm Sunday is the start of people opening up the cottages for the summer season, so more people were in the area opening up their 'summer' homes.  The storms hit at dusk, and caught people in the surrounding farm areas out in their fields, or inside the churches attending evening services.  Once the first tornado went through, people were just coming out of the rubble that were once their homes,  and looking for loved ones and neighbors when the second line of tornadoes hit them again. 

Clean up and rescue went on for days.  The sheriff of our county was out there for days without sleep.  During his tenure as sheriff which lasted a couple/few decades, his mission was to make sure that our county would never again be caught by surprise without warning of impending storms.  He implemented warning alarms and sirens throughout the county.

These days, we have early detection radars that can warn earlier.  Like today for example, we heard yesterday that our area might be hit with straight line winds up to 75 miles per hour between 4 and 8pm today.  Possible tornado activity also.  If you look outside my window right now as I write, you would see a rather quiet, warm rainy day, quite a contrast from the snowy weather we had earlier this week, and kind of rare for November.

I  am grateful that we can be warned earlier these days.  Our son just left to go home three hours away, before this weather will hit today.   I am grateful what we know and how to plan around it so that what happened before, doesn't happen again.  I am grateful that people have made it important to them to warn us as soon as possible.  Mother Nature shows us time and time again that she won't be harnessed, but if we can see that she is rearing her head, we can better be prepared.