My First Tornado Warning!

I guess it shouldn't come as a surprise that in the land of the midwest, I would encounter storms and crazy weather....but while I may dramatically exclaim about the dangers, I don't ever really think through these things...:o)

So imagine my surprise that my first tornado warning came a week or so ago, while I was at the movies at a matinee of The Avengers.  Towards the end where the action really started picking up, we noticed a creaking sound coming from the ceiling...which soon became apparent that it was NOT part of the movie or surround sound.  Only minutes later, a employee came in, paused the movie and informed everyone that they could either stay in the back of the theatre or move into the hallway.  Since sitting higher up in stadium seating, closer to the high, creaking ceiling did not seem like the best plan, my friends and I moved out to the hallway to wait for the fifteen/twenty minutes.  As we filed back in, the same employee assured us that our movie was "close to being done, since it's....well, I'm not going to tell you how it ends." Thank you movie theater employee for holding back the spoiler alert that almost left your lips.  And then, one man sneezed and collectively the whole theater blessed him. I guess we felt bonded having survived a natural disaster and all....

It wasn't until we attempted to make it back across town, that we saw the damage inflicted by the storm. Trees and branches had been knocked down, street lights were out, and traffic was pretty bad. A few streets were blocked off by cop cars and we back-roaded it to our part of town.  People around Fort Wayne were out of power for upwards of a week, and my fridge held extra food rescued from a friend's powerless house for a few days...actually looked like I had grocery shopped for a while...:o) Luckily there are not many trees around my apartment complex nor did we lose our power.  Perfect as 100 degree weather quickly followed the storm, making for some hot and humid days.

damage to a mobile home close to the movie theater!

The irony was not lost of me that the same storm hit all the way across to the East Coast knocking power out in most of Northern Virginia....amazingly Colonial Beach did not lose power....normally it would be the other way around!