That means we have an interior closet that is our "safe place".
This closet is under our stairs and contains our 72 hour kit and our 30 day food storage.(I figure if a tornado is going to take everything out, I will want those things with me.)
Friday night I was putting together Easter baskets and we heard the sirens go off. We also subscribe to a local weather channel system that will call you when there is a severe thunder storm warning, a flash flood warning, or a tornado warning. The recorded call was for a tornado warning. It said that a funnel cloud had been spotted and that we should take emergency action immediately.
It is so weird, though. It goes from being completely peaceful outside to complete chaos - nice and calm one minute, then there will be a crack of thunder, gusts of winds, and then all of a sudden tornado force winds and pouring rain.
It is also kind of like you wonder if you should really get in the closet. It just feels silly. Like when you are at some public place and the fire alarm goes off but nobody does anything.
Well, Todd and I looked at each other and said, "Should we get the kids?" Because, really, does anyone want to wake up four peacefully sleeping children at 11 o'clock at night? NO.
We did. We got everyone crammed in the closet with our flashlights and our weather radio and we listened.
And we started to sweat. It was hot.
Macie and Charlotte were calmer than I expected. They had their blankies and they sucked their thumbs. Riley was pretty scared. She was saying, "I don't want there to be a tornado!"
She cried, so I kept reassuring her that it was OK and that we were fine. Then she would get mad and say, "Then WHY can't we get OUT?!"
I tried to explain that most likely nothing was going to happen, but that we were in the closet just in case. Kind of like you wear your seat belt every time you get in the car - just in case-, but that doesn't mean you are going to get in a crash. It seemed to help a bit.
After about 30 minutes we had the go-ahead to get out. Finally. We crawled out tired and sweaty.
The winds had calmed down, but the thunder was booming and the lightening was lighting up the whole house. We put Carver back in his crib and he zonked. The girls were all paraniod so they slept on our bedroom floor...which results in no sleep for anyone.
We've been having serious rain everyday since. Somedays I wonder if our house will just up and float away.
Fortunately, no more tornado warnings. Good thing, because yesterday Macie said she never wanted to go in the fire closet again.
I guess I should have a talk with her and let her know it is not a safe place to go when there is a fire.
6 comments:
The tornado closet...best place in the whole house! I am impressed yours is so empty! Whenever we have to go in there, it takes 10 minutes to empty out all the JUNK that is kept in there! Totally defeats the purpose of a tornado closet!!!:)
Autumn, I do have to take out the toy box, the vacuum, the pack-n-play, and many other random items that get shoved in there :)
Super cute girls with their umbrellas!
In Texas we spent a few hours one night all in the bathtub, so a closet sound really nice.
Jared...the whole fam in one bathtub? That does sound bad. Did it freak your kids out?
It was just Lydia and Brooke at the time. They sat in the tub with Adri, I was next to it. They may have booth slept through it (it was ~11:00, they were little).
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