Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Tornado in Cincinnati?

Michael and I have lived in Cincinnati for 4 years now, and with each passing storm, I become more and more afraid that I will find myself in the middle of a tornado here in the Midwest. I am afraid of what could happen given the fact that our home is 98 yeas old and our basement, apparently our only safe place to hide, is full of spiders.

I never had this fear before living here because in Florida we only worried about hurricanes and in Salt Lake City it was a freakishly crazy day when a tornado actually touched down along Capital hill and traveled downtown for a few seconds in 1999. But apparently, here in the Midwest it is not uncommon for the sirens to go off in the middle of the night to warn residents about the possibility of a tornado.

Well, last night I was awoken at 2am by a howling sound and a continuously flashing light in my bedroom. We like to sleep with a box fan in the window, and I finally jumped out of bed when the heavy winds from outside blew it out of the window and onto the floor. I ran to the window and looked out and saw the wind blowing in every direction and more lightning than I had ever seen in my life! My first thought was there was a tornado. One had touched down about 200 miles west of us the day before and I remembered the guy on the news saying it sounded like a train going by, and my heart started racing when I heard what sounded like a train!! I ran downstairs to turn on the television and saw on the news that there was a severe thunderstorm with the possibility of a tornado. I looked out the window and was partially relieved when I saw a train going along the tracks down the street from us!! What are the odds that a loading train would be going by at 2am during a severe thunderstorm? I would just like to thank the conductor for giving me a heart attack!!!

Well, after trying to wake Michael in the case of a true tornado and giving up because he decided to just lie there than telling him he could go ahead and sleep through a true tornado if he wanted to, the sirens finally stopped.

I decided I was safe and this is when I grabbed the camera and decided to film some of the lightening. I have been through my fair share of thunderstorms in Florida, but I had never seen so much, and after my heart stopped pounding from my "near-death experience" I realized how amazing the lightning was, even if near the end of the clip, it looks like it strikes our house!!!

Sorry that it is so hard to see, but I was looking out of our side window at our neighbors house and I had the camera sideways. Also, that constant moaning is the thunder and halfway through the clip you can hear the hail starting to fall. I hope this is the closest I ever get to being in a tornado!

5 comments:

The Travelogue said...

That's so scary. It makes me glad to live in SLC, where we only have blizzards and heat waves (except for that freak tornado.) Be careful!

Mike Alexis & Grayson said...

I started laughing when I read your post because the storm woke me up and there was not way I was sleeping so I pulled out our camera too! Mike was making fun of me because it was 2:00am and I was filming out the window. I haven't got the chance to put our video on our blog yet but I'm planning on it. That was the CRAZIEST storm that I have ever seen! That was the first time that I was truely scared of a storm.

MB said...

I woke up at the same time too. I should've called everyone and had a party on the phone so we wouldn't be thinking about the craziness outside ! :)

Jennie said...

I slept through the whole thing! Britton said that he was up looking out the window the whole time! I guess the new bed is working:)

Harris Family said...

I have the same fear! Everytime a storm comes I panic and think I am going to die. I just envision my family being suck up in a tornado. We live in a third story apartment and have no where to hide so I am pretty much terrified of all the storms! Luckily the bad storm season has basically past!