Whose Idea Was It to Move to the Tornado Belt?

Mine.

This blog is being written from my bathtub. I would be in my basement, but I just went down there to set up shop with the kerosene lamp and a lighter and there is a crazy bird flapping about. I guess I'll take my chances and weather this storm in the bathtub. That's what most people do in tornado season because basements aren't that common in this area of the country. However, most people aren't running for cover right now because technically it's only a thunderstorm. There is a tornado watch, but currently no tornado to speak of.

So why am I wearing my galoshes in the bathtub with my dogs and a can of chili for when diaster strikes, behaving like a hot billy goat mess? Because I'm a scaredy cat when it comes to tornadoes, thunderstorms and natural disasters in general. So is my 10 pound Chihuahua, and we feed off each other's anxiety. He's behind the toilet, I'm in the tub. And tornado season has just begun. Every beautiful 70 degree February day has a black lining. Warm plus cold=recipe for a tornado.

Tornadoes aren't just for spring, fall is also prime time. Again, just mix a warm and a cold front and you've got yourself the fixins' for a Tornado. Last summer, my hospital orientation included a 20 minute lecture on what to do in a tornado, and the difference between a tornado watch and warning. I, of course can't keep them straight, but in one scenario, the tornado is definitely going to kill us all, and in the other, the tornado might come for us. Surprise! And of course none of this will be broadcast in plain language, but rather using a color coded alert system to further confuse us all.

My first encounter with the overhead warning speaker system was in October. "Yellow Alert, yellow alert" proclaimed the nasal sounding robot. I looked around, none of the other nurses seemed to be freaking out. I, on the other hand was pretty sure that we had just received the "tornado is on the way" alert. They're all desensitized, I thought. With a slight tremble flowing through my body I made my way to the break room. "Did you hear that alert?" I asked a fellow nurse. "A tornado is on the way, correct?"
"Wrong", she laughed. "That means the computer system is down".

A couple weeks later at work, we got the "maybe a tornado will hit us" warning. Protocol is to close the shades in the patients' rooms. That's right, close the shades. That will save us. If we receive a "tornado is definitely gonna get us" alert we would move the patients' beds into the hallways. I remarked on the silliness of this to my patient's son as I closed the shades in their room. We had been discussing tornadoes all morning. He'd been cool as a cucumber on the subject of impending tornadoes, so his opinion of shade closing surprised me. He found value in the act as it could save us from getting glass to the face. To me, a tornado was still a hypothetical situation. This guy had actually seen a few.

As the months progressed I met people who have had their homes completely destroyed by a tornado and suffered bodily harm from them. A coworker of mine recalled childhood memories of running from her house and through her yard to a Wizard of Oz type shelter in the ground. I quell my anxiety with the fact that all of these stories took place in Alabama.

Today, as I prepared for diaster I drew down the shades in my bedroom. Couldn't hurt, I thought. Luckily, after 20 minutes in the bathroom the thunderstorm subsided and the dogs and I quietly reclaimed the rest of the house. There are no atheists in the foxholes and no shade scoffers in the tornado belt.