For those that don't watch CNN on a regular basis you might not have heard that the Atlanta area has been hit by tornado's over the past 24-48 hours. Heck, I didn't even know until my parents called us asking if we're alright. Needless to say, the tornado threat is on everyone's mind.

Today, Isaac's Tee Ball game was canceled so as a family we left to do some shopping. We had to go to Flowery Branch, GA and to get there we had to take a winding "country" road to get there. As we're driving, I hear this noise. I ask Mary if she hears the strange "whistle" (bad word choice). She proceeds to tell me, "Yeah, that's my window!" 

(OK...backstory...the seal around the front window of Mary's van is goofy. When you drive over 40mph, you'll hear a whistle while in the front seat. We've had conversations about this "whistle" and we both know that it exists)

 Now, when I said "whistle" I knew I picked the wrong word...but I couldn't remember "SIREN" for the life of me.  I told Mary, "NO! I know what that whistle is, this is different!" Still struggling to think of the word I rolled down the window and yelled, "That NOISE!" Well, Mary knew that I was talking about the Tornado Siren going off. Mary asked what we should do and I pointed to a school parking lot and said "go to there". Mary asked again, and I just said, "there, there, there" as I'm looking in the sky for anything threatening.

Mary pulls into the lot and I'm scanning the skyline, but I can't see anything. I see some low clouds, but no funnel.  I see the clouds are blowing away from us, so 'm looking behind for any danger. All of a sudden Mary says, "There it is. It's between the trees. It kinda looks like a shadow of a tree." It's pretty darn skinny, but I've seen them on TV where they looked really skinny. Because this thing was in the distance in front of us and the winds were at our backs, I wasn't too worried anymore. Mary asked if we should go in the ditch and I said, "no". Just then it started poring down rain, and I started thinking, "Man, did we get lucky".

As it's raining, the sun popped out behind us and made an awesome rainbow just in front of us. This was awesome timing because Trey was really starting to freak-out. Things were clearing-up behind us and I took my eye off the funnel. I asked Mary, "did it go away?" She said, "No, it's still there." I looked, saw the stick-like figure and agreed. However, when I saw it again, it looked different but oddly familiar. Then I thought I saw a flash of light. I kept staring...another blink of light. "Damnit, it's a radio tower", I thought. I go, "Mary, that's not a funnel, it's a radio tower" and I start laughing. Mary looks a little closer and starts laughing too. After Mary gets her knees to stop shaking, we drove off to Kohls with a pretty funny story to tell. 

---

Only registered users can write comments.
Please login or register.

Powered by AkoComment 2.0!