Storm Stories 2

I know I said awhile ago I would continue the tornado stories. That was August 15.  Now it's October 18th.

Sorry.  I don't call it the Random blog for nothing. I can't stay on a train of thought.

But right now I'm watching Storm Chasers so I'm thinking about it again.  Everyone keeps asking me why we're still testing the tornado sirens when we won't have any more tornados this year.

Actually, the lastest ever tornado recorded in Minneosta was November 16, 1931 near Maple Plain.  So there :)  Not out of the woods yet, people.  But I think we've got a much better chance this year of getting a blizzard by Nov. 16 rather than a twister.

So without further aduo, I bring you...

Tornado #3 - Foster, WI, August 27, 1994 (F3 tornado) **okay I cheated and looked up the date online. But I still knew it was the summer of 1994**

This was a big, bad tornado.  It killed two people.  It did a lot of damage.  I know, you're thinking Foster?  I thought she lived in Eau Claire?  No, I lived out in the middle of nowhere outside Eau Claire. I actually lived 3 miles outside the village of Cleghorn (remember me talking about that trash town?) and Cleghorn is 7 miles northwest of the town of Foster.  And it's all farm fields in between that.

Aug. 27 we'd just gotten home from Three Lakes.  Judging by the date I'd say it was Labor Day weekend but I honestly don't remember.  Here's what I do remember--it was getting dark when we got home about three or four in the afternoon.  I unpacked my stuff and took a bath.  I put on my blue t-shirt with a big flourecent yellow circle on it with a mosquito in the center that said "Wisconsin State Bird" under it. Haha.

Back then we had a tri-level house, as my parents do now, so my room and bathroom and family room were in the lower level (but there was still one more level down in the basement.)  I could hear the storm starting up outside, so I went out into the family room to check on it.  The windows were now black.  I went upstairs into the kitchen where my mom was unpacking food from the trip.  At that point we were under a tornado watch and she was too busy unpacking to be concerned about the storm.  I grabbed a bag of Cheetos and starred out the bay window, watching the trees whip around in the oncoming storm.

My wet hair hadn't been combed out yet, so I went back downstairs.  I flipped on the t.v. to the local station and went into the bathroom.  I was brushing out my hair when I heard the dreaded warning beeps come across the t.v.  I ran into family room and sat in front of the t.v. in time to see the weather man standing in front of the doppler map (which was black with white county lines and roads and basically looked like your old Apple II display) and he was saying we were under a tornado warning and a tornado was currently in the town of Foster.  They believed it to be very large and dangerous.  He had a triangle on the map just outside Foster where the tornado was, then said the storm was headed northwest.

What's northwest of Foster?

Oh yeah, my house!

Just in case I wasn't clear on that, he drew a dotted line of the projected path of the tornado.  It cut right through Cleghorn, and literally right over my house.  I could locate my neighborhood on the map and the dotted line went right over it.  Now isn't that enough to freak you out?

I looked out the window at the black sky.  In a huge flash of lightening, I could see the medium sized jack pines in our yard.  They were nearly parallel with the ground--the wind was that strong.  The lightening flashed over and over again and I expected any minute for those trees to be ripped straight out of the ground.

It was about that time my mom realized what was happening and started screaming at me to get the animals and get in the basement.  I ran upstairs and grabbed my dog, Heidi, and pushed her downstairs.  She didn't want to go.  I shoved her down the basement stairs and slammed the door.  Then I had to run up to the second floor to grab my cat, Oreo.  I ran down two flights of stairs with him, then opened the basement door and Heidi ran out.  I threw Oreo inside the basement and ran back upstairs after Heidi. I could hear the wind escalating outside.  The noise was getting incredible.  I pushed her down the stairs again, grabbed the Cheetos from bribery, and joined her down there.  Our basement was seperated into two rooms (still is) a laundry room and the utility room which was safer and further under the house.  So Heidi and I sat in the utility room (Oreo stayed in the laundry room, there was too much trouble for a cat to get into in the utility room) and ate Cheetos manically as it sounded like the house was being torn apart over our heads.

Where are my parents?  Upstairs.  My dad never has gone into the basement once during a storm.  He stays outside or upstairs and watches the sky.  I always wanted to watch with him but my mom would never let me.  This time he was sitting in the screen porch at the back of the house, watching the storm.  My mom was in the kitchen praying and watching the storm.

Finally she called to me that the tornado had fallen apart and it was safe to come upstairs.

That didn't mean the storm was over.  Knowing what I know now, it probably wasn't safe to come upstairs yet. That tornado absoultely could have reformed right over our heads and there would have been no warning for us--no time to take shelter before it hit.

In fact, it stormed until after I went to bed.  My mom finally decided it was safer for us to stay down in the family room, just in case.  I remember we sat down there, trying to watch t.v. as the storm kept raging, this time making the power cut out every five minutes.

That was sooo creepy.  You're sitting there, all on edge because there's already been a tornado once, and suddenly there's a loud pop and all the power shuts off and you're sitting there in the dark with lightening and thunder crashing all around you.  You can't see anything but lightening.  Honestly that was one of the most frightening nights of my life.  I was pracitcally crying by the end of it because my nerves were so fried.  You don't know if another tornado is dropping on you at that very second because it's dark and your power is off.  I already mentioned we couldn't hear the sirens where we lived.  And then the power comes back on...and then off.  And then on...and then off.  Repeat that for two hours.

The town of Foster was pretty messed up.  Mostly outside of town in the farm fields.  There was a lot of damage, and my parents drove down on my dad's motorcycle to see it.  I asked my mom to go see it, but she said no because it was pretty devistating and she was worried it would give me nightmares.  She was always worried about me getting nightmares.  Honestly, I got way more nightmares from things SHE told me or showed me than anything else I saw that she was afraid of me seeing. (There's a story about cows and a barn fire I should tell here but I'll save it for another time).

Anyway, my dad and I went on a motorcycle ride shortly after that, and he asked me if I wanted to see the damage.  I said yes, of course.  So we drove out there.  He said, don't tell your mom I showed you :)

I have to say, it was creepy.  I saw lots of destroyed houses and barns, but that wasn't the creepy part.

As we drove through the countryside, there was a huge farm field to our right with a line of trees at the far side.  You could see all these trees, intact, then suddenly--no trees.  Flattened messes of trees went for about 1/4 mile, then suddenly stood right back up again.  A mess of torn up dirt extended from that empty space of no trees right down through the field, across the road where we were driving, and straight into a house at the other side of the road.  You could see exaclty where that tornado came through, exactly how wide it was (very wide!).  That was the creepiest image that won't leave my mind.

Okay, off to bed now.  Until next time (and maybe another storm story...)