Tragedy

All of my life, I've lived in Illinois. We've seen strong winds before, but the worst usually comes in the form of flooding. Though that has the full potential of being devastating, and even left part of my family without a home last year, disasters like that--though they may take our belongings--are usually fairly easy to survive. You have a certain amount of forewarning, and our community is so used to it, that it's something we've learned to handle. It's scary, yes, but I've never been worried that I might lose someone I love.

Yesterday morning, at almost 5 a.m., an EF-4 tornado touched down in my hometown and cut a path of devastation. The worst was that many of us had no idea it was coming. When I went to bed the night before around 10 pm, I knew that it was storming. We've had our fair share of severe thunderstorms, so I wasn't overly concerned, but I did check the weather before bed. I don't even think that there was any kind of warning at that point in time. It was just an 80% chance of thunderstorms with possible severe lightning. I was like, okay, so it's going to be the usual. Thunderstorms creep me out, but I told myself that I was  being paranoid, and that I just needed to go to bed, and it'd be over by the time I woke up. But when I woke up again, it was shortly before 5 am, and it was because the power went out. Usually, just about anything will wake me up, and the sudden silence was what brought me awake yesterday morning.

I could hear it storming outside and was just about convinced to roll over and go back to sleep when I heard a faint, horribly familiar noise. I must have sat there for a full minute straining to hear it, but then I realized that it was the tornado siren. My guess was that it was hard to hear, because it was across town. I don't know where the tornado sirens are placed here, but it wasn't until ten-fifteen minutes later that I could actually distinctly hear it. So I assumed that one closer to us went off later. Anyway, I felt the usual panic storms induce rise up in me, and I shook my husband awake. Together we stumbled around the dark for our glasses and shorts and shoes. I scooped up my cat as he went for flashlights, tossed her into the basement, and then we carried one dog a piece down there with us.

I know that my mother is the same as a lot of people around here. We've heard the tornado siren go off on several occasions before, but we've never actually had a tornado go through town, so I called her. I had to try 4 or 5 times before it would go through, which was pretty frightening, but I finally got a hold of her and found that she was just getting out of the shower. I told her to get my sister and get to the basement. Five minutes later, I called her again, because Adam was looking it up on his phone and discovered that a tornado had been spotted at the edge of town. I frantically told her to make sure she was in the basement, that there was a legitimate tornado spotted.

Some time later, the sirens stopped. A little while after, we went back upstairs. Everything inside and outside was pitch black. I had no idea how bad I would later discover it had become out there, because my street was unscathed. As far as I knew, the tornado hadn't done anything. However, as the sun came up, we started getting phone calls. The first one that I received was from my dad. He had been underground at the mines when everything had happened, and had come to the surface to find a lot of destruction, including his truck that he'd just purchased last week. Something huge had hit the passenger side door, caving in the side and busting out all the windows, soaking the interior so that nothing inside worked any longer. He'd also been told that he needed to get home, because our town had been flattened. Considering how hard it was to get calls through, I know he must have been terrified considering how long it took to get a hold of me.

The breathless sound of his voice, I think, was what first told me that something really bad had happened. He asked if I was all right, if my mom and sister were all right. I told him that we were fine. He told me he was on his way home, and my mom and I decide to go and see what's happened. At this point, I had no idea what to expect, and I certainly never expected what I saw. The other side of town is covered in emergency vehicles, a strip mall is flattened, and debris is everywhere. I have family and friends that live behind the WalMart that's surrounded by destruction. We get a call from my aunt, who lives behind that Walmart, and who tells us she saw a house get blown away, that she opened her door afterward to screams for help.

Since I don't have any medical training, I had to go home, but my parents and husband, who do have the training, return to help. It's an hour after they're gone when I realize that the tornado's path started three blocks down from my house before it cut across town. I think that really brought it home. That, and the pictures that started surfacing on facebook and on tv. It's hard to imagine that I look outside, and everything seems normal, when, three blocks away, people are homeless, and six have died in town. I was sick and in shock all day yesterday, and this morning I woke up with the same anxiety pooled in the pit of my stomach. I want to help these people, but they aren't accepting any more volunteers, and I don't have any medical training to really help. 

So instead I sit in my house, and all I can do is pray for these people and wonder how my everyday life can go on while, at the same time, being incredibly thankful that it can. I don't know when the fear will go away, but likely not in the next two nights as the weatherman reports that conditions are becoming favorable for the same sort of storm. Today I've decided that we have to be more prepared. I have a few chores to do around the house, but then I'm going to make an emergency pack. A backpack filled with a few of the essentials for a storm: bottles of water, a blanket, flashlights, and things like that. We were scrambling to find those things when the storm hit us, and I'm horrified to think of what would have happened to us if that tornado had dropped on our street.

We've also gotten our weather radio out, which we had packed away into a cabinet at the time, because February is just not the time that you even really consider that a tornado could happen. Any night it's said to storm, I'm just going to start leaving the thing on. Better safe than sorry, you know? And what makes this even more unreal is how beautiful it's been outside since it happened. I guess that's part of the problem, right? Warm and cool air mixing? Honestly, as much as I love this weather, I'd rather we were going through our typical winter right now: freezing temperatures, sleet, and snow. I'd take that in comparison to what happened yesterday morning.

I guess now as a community we've just got to band together, cope with it, and rebuild. I don't think that it will ever be the same around here though. At least, it will take awhile to get back to that point. I still have a lot of homework I need to do this week, but I feel like I'm currently stuck in neutral. My brain isn't really processing much, and I just can't imagine concentrating on poetry right now after so much has happened. I'm going to try to work through some of it tonight after I make my emergency pack and go through the clothes in my closet. I have so much I don't wear that I'm going to find everything I can to donate. That's what I love about this town. When people are in need, we help each other.

EDIT: Considering how many times I changed tense while writing this, it must be pretty obvious that I'm not ready to sit and write poetry or do homework. My thoughts are just jumping everywhere.