I hate thick, dark, high pressured storms. Lots of people I talk to love them. Chris does - - he likes the power of a good, hard thunderstorm.
As for me? I get paranoid.
On April 4, 1981 - I lived through the worst tornado. It was actually two tornado’s that started as one - - split and went into separate directions, and then rejoined at the end to form one killer cloud. Thankfully, only 3 people lost their lives in that storm. (not thankful for them or their families, of course - but it could have been SO worse!) One was a ten year old kid named “Scott”, whom I used to babysit for. His father was on-call for the Fire Department that night. He was at the station when the tornado hit at 12:01 am. He is the one who found his boy - I don’t think he ever recovered.
The oddest thing was - - every single house in our neighborhood was destroyed. Rooftops were lying in the street. Personal belongings were scattered across 4 counties. It was a mess. In the middle of that mess was our house — well, my parents house, but I was 12, at the time. Our house stood, undamaged, in the midst of it all. The only damage we suffered was a 2×4 that made it’s way through our roof and landed in the toilet.
We took in a lot of families that year - as the neighborhood started rebuilding itself. Everyone rebuilt their homes and stayed in the neighborhood. Well, except for Scott’s family - they moved after the disaster.
Right now, there is one heck of a storm out. It’s beginning to look like Dorothy’s Kansas out there. Rain, high winds, hail…I hate it. I just tuned into the Weather Channel, who informed me that there is a dangerous twister on the ground in Iowa - - same storm that is headed in this general direction.
To make matters worse, Chris is flying in from Atlanta tonight at 8:30pm. As a general rule, I hate when he flies. Tonight - I’m a basket case.
Got Valium?
5:58 pm on May 21st, 2004
I love thunderstorms, so long as I’m not in one of those trailer homes.
I grew up in a trailer home out in the middle of freakin’ no where in West Texas. I remember the house rocking when the wind would really kick up in a bad storm. Once I got out of those and into a “regular” house with a good, firm, solid foundation, those storms have never really bothered me again.
6:42 pm on May 21st, 2004
I survived the 1982 Paris, Texas tornado! It flattened about half of Paris. I was mad because our school was untouched while directly across the street from it there was nothing left standing.
8:54 pm on May 21st, 2004
I lived in Texas before moving to Orlando and I always loved storms until my first major one in Texas. That night tornados were literally everywhere. One traveled straight up I30 from Fort Worth to Arlington. It was a train of severe storms all night. At one point there were 80 mph straightline winds carrying softball-size hail. I still like rain but after that night…I’ll pass on the severe storms. In my life I have been in the vicinity of 4 different tornados. Not fun. So that is why I moved to Hurricane country… ::: sigh :::
12:59 am on May 22nd, 2004
Isn’t the weather scary sometimes? I used to think earthquakes were fun till we had that big one (Loma Prieta)… All the destruction, deaths, that really got me.
12:41 pm on November 8th, 2004
Grub, dont you mean tornadoes?
That F4 I hear was crazy!! My family lived in Paris at the time, but moved shortly afterwards.
12:11 am on November 9th, 2006
I was not alive when Paris had it’s F4 but my boyfriends aunt was and when we were sharing an apartment with her i come to realize that everytime there was any chance of a slight storm or the making of it..she’d leave in her car and just drive around and listen to the radio (for the weather reports of course) until it all cleared up…she couldnt stand it to be in our apartment or anywhere if there was a storm brewing outside…I guess her driving around made her feel like she could out run it if she had to? I guess the stor in 82 more or less traumatized her for years to come…I’d hate to not be able to sleep through the night because of a small storm…