So, I had another interesting week.
Work was decent, but nothing special. Just started learning more stuff in my new position and getting more responsibilities.
The real excitement came Thursday. I was just sitting at home, playing Zombies with a friend when my phone goes off. TORNADO WARNING. I check the radar and see that the system is south of me. Okay, fine. Play a little longer. Another alert comes up showing TORNADO WARNING again. I hear knocking on my wall telling me that the sirens are going off. I couldn't hear shit because of my headset and game volume and shit. Either way, I take my headset off, go downstairs, and sure enough.. the sirens are going off. I look outside and there's a torrential downpour. The power goes out about a minute later. We're all huddled up in the bathroom because of it. I decide to go check outside. Still raining, still windy.. then all of a sudden, I hear this low rumble and constant humming. I heard the fucking tornado. I wanted to go outside, but I was pulled back into the bathroom.
Bastards.
Anyway, after about 20 minutes, everything passed and my house was still standing. I decided to go out into the rain and check the damage around the house and around the cars. Only a bunch of tree limbs were down and a bigger branch was hanging right above one of our vehicles. A little farther and it would have been disastrous.
I went for a drive and discovered some damage in town at a gas station, a church, and other areas. In the end, I discovered that this was by far my closest encounter with a tornado.
It struck about 7 blocks away (confirmed) from my house. There's some more damage that looks like it could have been even closer about a block away. Needless to say, it was an adventure.
After all that, we had more storms come through the next night, on Friday. Again, tornado sirens went off, but it was different this time. There was no sign of any threat of a tornado or anything. They just went off for no reason. Thanks, National Weather Service!
All in all, about 5 inches of rain in 48 hours, a couple tornadoes hit really close to home (both Thursday, one a bit further north and the one closer) and a whole lot of activity.
It's such an adrenaline rush, but once that rush wears off, it feels great to be alive.
-HF.
