I had worked at TAP Publishing for 6 years and had full access to weatherTAP.com. I mainly looked at the forecast. Then a tornado came through a friend of mine's house. They were in the house with no idea it was that close until they heard it. They barely had time to get anywhere safe. They didn't have room in the hall closet for the whole family and they felt like that was going to be the safest place in the house. So they had about two seconds to decide who would go where. They put the two oldest kids in that closet. They took the baby and went into the bathroom.
I always get choked up at that part of the story. They didn't want to split up. But they wanted to give their kids the best shot at making it through. They wanted to put the baby in there too. But what if something happened to him and the other two blamed themselves for the rest of their lives? So the baby had to go with them.
When the tornado hit the house, their oldest son said it felt like the door was going to come off the closet. So he held onto it and his sister held on to him. This is the other part that gets me... they told each other that even though they fought sometimes they really loved each other. These kids were afraid they might not make it and wanted to make sure they said the important stuff. They were about 11 and 12. I can't imagine how the parents were doing in the bathroom, hearing the house come apart and not knowing how those two were doing.
The roof was basically torn off the entire house, except the closet and the bathroom. Thank you God, they were all safe. The oldest son called my oldest daughter to let her know he was ok. It was a very emotional day. The next day, we went over to help clean up. It was crazy and surreal feeling. The house was done. They lived around a year at the wife's parent's house. They've always been a close family, but got even closer that year. Now they have a fantastic new house and all is well. Our pastor says if God takes something, he has something better for you. It was certainly true in this case.
But it freaked me out. I would much rather be in my in-laws basement if a tornado is going take my house. I still can't wrap my mind around how awful that had to have been. At work afterward, the weatherTAP team was talking about tracking the storm on RadarLab. In about 3 min time, they showed me how plot my house on the map and what colors of storm tracks meant we needed to take cover and how long we had to do it. I came home and showed my son. He was nine then and figured it out as quickly as I had. It gave us all a lot of peace of mind when the next storm came through. And it still does.
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