Tornado Alarm

The blasting siren traveled to my six year-old ears, reverberating in every direction inside my skull.  Maggie looked to the sky, pulling a Pall Mall out of the tanned, ancient folds protecting her toothless gums and declared, “There’s a tornado com’n!”

Terror filled me.  I ran in high gear, next door to my two-story red sandpaper-sided house and straight to my personal fallout shelter.  Sitting on bathroom scales stuffed between the pipes of our small sink and stained bathtub, I clasped my ears and sobbed, knowing I would be blown to bits.  I was a dramatic child.  Like “the chicken or the egg” question, I’m not sure which came first: my fear of storms or my neighbor Maggie cementing it into my psyche. It never occurred to me to think about why the rest of my family didn’t join me in hiding and I now wonder if they even knew I went missing.

Living in “Tornado Alley” next to a storm-hysterical, sweet neighbor, surely influenced my behavior, but I also remember my parents recounting traveling through a tornado when I was a few months old. They pulled to the side of the road in Allerton, IL, got on their knees in the floorboard of the car and held tight to me and prayed the twister following our same path, would skip over the car.  It did, but that wasn’t the last I heard of the story.  My father, who was also hypervigilant about storms, would often tell the story when we’d be holed up in a closet and the weather report told us to take cover. Despite having parents who paced the floor when the rains came, I took a 180 degree turn. Actually, it may have been in spite of them. Going against whatever my parents believed or did, became my childhood mantra.  

Somewhere along my path, I found myself enthralled with storms.  I love watching them roll in; anticipation fills me and unpredictable patterns streaking the dark sky are better than any fireworks I’ve ever watched.  The rain is so soothing and renewing, and I am in awe of the beauty. I want to watch the sky and know what’s headed my way, instead of cowering from it.

A few years ago, a February tornado hit my county.  It took lives and brought the importance of protection to the forefront of all our minds.  As a teacher, I am responsible for keeping students calm and safe when our tornado alarm sounds.  So on another February day, under storm warnings, I predicted to my students we would most likely have a drill.  The morning progressed smoothly and no drill came. As afternoon came and the sky continued to be ominous, I still expected a drill.

Sure enough, the beeps began.  I stood and told my students to go downstairs to our safe space quickly and quietly, as I grabbed my purse and attendance register.  I always go behind them, closing the door. I had gathered my things and headed to the door. I stopped cold, realizing my students were still sitting at their desks, twenty of them, staring at me.  This was an odd thing; it felt like defiance.

“What are you waiting for?  Come on!”

The room was quiet. Somehow, someone was able to form the words without exploding, “It was our phones.”  

A couple more students in unison, “It was an Amber Alert.”  

The class again waited, silently.  It took my brain a minute to register.  Those beeps did sound different from a building-wide alarm and they did stop by the time I reached the door. Then the scene became too much; as my suppressed smile made an appearance, we all burst out laughing.  Belly laughs went on and on. “You should have seen you, Ms. K!” “You should have seen your face!”

Recomposed, I checked my phone to find out they were correct.  SALINE COUNTY SHERIFF: POSSIBLE CHILD ABDUCTION IN SALINE COUNTY, NEAR LOCAL SCHOOL.  Then the magnitude of the situation sunk in: there was a child abducted from our county.  Suddenly, it felt very irreverent to be laughing. We went solemn.

By the time school was out for the day, we again received phone alerts:  SALINE COUNTY SHERIFF: ABDUCTED CHILD SAFELY RECOVERED. Woohoo! Two crises averted by one Amber Alert!