Friday, June 19, 2009

Wednesday Night Storms

So we were outside playing with our neighbors on Wednesday night when the tornado sirens sounded. It was overcast, and dark clouds were rolling in, but that happens so often that we were surprised to get inside to hear that we had a tornado warning for the next 45 minutes. I did convince Brian the first year we moved to MN that we needed an emergency weather radio. Boy has that thing come in handy.

Brian had to go to Minneapolis to pick up his mom from the airport so he left shortly after the warning expired hoping to miss the next batch of storms. And of course while he was gone the satellite went out... I turned on the computer to check the radar again as the sirens started again. Our weather radio was alarming saying that there was a tornado on the ground 6 miles west of Owatonna moving east. Yeah, we live in Owatonna! Off to our "hideout" under the stairs. I have a big beanbag chair and "tornado kit" back under the stairs in our basement storage room. So there we sat, the girls and I... I had the computer on live radar, the weather radio right next to me, and the girls looked totally freaked out! We got ping pong ball size hail, that I swore was going to break a window, and 1 1/2 inches of rain in about 2 hours. The tornado missed us and all ended up well. My girls did awesome listening to me and staying put when I asked (for once!). While we were in the thick of that storm Payton looked at me and said "Is it almost over Mumma?" I said it was almost past us and we just needed to sit tight for a little bit longer. She than said "This storm has really ruined my night!" How cute is that!? I really needed that at that moment!

Here they are hunkered down in our "shelter" after the storm had passed.

2 comments:

Ronni said...

Oh, that's so cute! Ugh, I'm sorry that you had that scary time without Brian. We had a tornado warning in Seabrook right after Jill was born. My sister doesn't have a basement so she was at my mom's with the girls. Jacq and Anna were freaked (Wizard of Oz!), and we were all standing in my mom's messy basement. Then Jacqui, sitting on the steps with her chin in her hands looked around and glumly said, "Wow. I guess now I know why Nana doesn't want us down here."

Tina said...

Awesome! Payton is usually so afraid of thunder storms and that same night she was so scared of the hail she saie "Mumma, I think I like the thunder better." somehow they know just how to make you feel better!