After reading this morning’s headlines about the devastating tornadoes that ravished Missouri, Tennessee and Kansas last night, I thought I’d share a little of my own tornadic experiences. I was living in Clarksville, Tennessee several years ago (yes, I caught the last train to Clarksville) when I had my first, and hopefully last, run-in with a tornado. Having lived most of my life on the coast, I’m intimately familiar with hurricanes and I must say that they are nothing like a tornado.
A bachelor at the time, I lived in an apartment above a lawyer’s office on Franklin Street in the historic district of downtown Clarksville. It was a quaint little apartment taking up the entire second floor of the century old brownstone building. The only drawback was that there were just two windows on the front of the building as it was sandwiched between two other brownstones. There was a skylight over the bedroom that made the place seem less cave like though.
I heard the hail hitting the skylight and woke up to see a lot of bright flashes going off in rapid succession. It reminded me of a paparazzi of photographers snapping away at Princess Diana as she got out of a limousine. I glanced at the clock to see that it was a little after two in the morning and wondered who the heck would be on the roof taking pictures of my boring life when I finally, fully awoke. Lightning. Before I could roll over to try and get some sleep I heard a loud, strange noise in the living room so I got up to investigate.
Walking down the long narrow hallway, I couldn’t imagine what the noise was. It sounded like a freight train almost, or a very loud rush of air. As I entered the living room I determined that it was just that, a rush of air coming through one of the two front windows. I thought to attempt to close the windows tighter when something clicked inside my brain. “Freight train? Isn’t that what everybody reports hearing just before a tornado hits?” a voice inside my head seemed to be asking. I stopped dead in my tracks and just as I turned to run back down the hallway the windows imploded sending shards of glass flying into the apartment, several of which embedded themselves into my back. As I ran towards the bathroom (that little voice recommended I do so) I was yelling “TORNADO! TORNADO! TORNADO!” Not to anyone in particular as I had no neighbors, but as a realization of what was happening.
The sound was deafening. I seemed to be moving in slow motion as things were flying around me through the apartment. Once inside the bathroom I sat with my back to the door bracing myself against the heavy winds now raging inside my once humble abode. I heard a loud cracking sound and the door shuddered and just as violently as it all started, it ended. The silence was deafening. I sat there for a minute collecting myself when it started to rain. That’s right, it was now raining inside what was once my humble abode. I looked up at where the roof used to be and saw sky.
Deciding that it was time to assess the damage I stood up, wincing in pain. It seemed my feet were bleeding pretty good from running through the broken glass that was once the skylight. When I saw the shredded mattress I was suddenly glad that I had gotten out of bed to investigate the original noise. I took a minute to put on some clothes before going out into the street but when I did I was amazed at the damage that had been done. Downtown Clarksville looked like a war zone. Bricks lay in the middle of the street as entire fronts of buildings collapsed, electric wires danced in sparks on the ground, and a fire burned a few buildings over sending flames into the dark, eerie night.
Some people started coming out of their dwellings and one guy had a pretty nasty cut on his forehead that a couple of us helped to bandage. Two police officers approached us but they were in more of a daze than we were, they had been trapped inside their cruiser that was literally lifted off the ground and thrown across to the other side of the street. Around the corner where I had parked my car, the bell from the town hall steeple was sitting on the sidewalk just a few yards from my parking spot; the car unscathed.
As the sun began to rise, I stood in the middle of Franklin Street in awe of the tempest that just swept through my life. I then realized that I had joined the ranks of those who reported hearing, but never seeing, that freight train just moments before it hit. Sgt Hook out.
Posted by Hook @ 0325 zulu | | Permalink
This post is filed under: Reconstructed
