Another Late-Night Tornado Warning

Last night it began to rain, oh, sometime after 8 o’clock here in Duncan, Oklahoma, and when I say ‘rain’, I mean HARD, pounding the roof and windows, RAIN. I tuned into the local news channel to see what drama was due to head our way but was disappointed to see that they were only reporting on Oklahoma City and thereabouts which is over seventy-five miles northeast of us. This does us no good since whatever is planning to hit them has probably already gone through our area *sigh* I watched the reports from the storm chasers for a while but wanted to find current information for my area, of which there was none.

The weather seemed to come in bands; we had some illuminating, house-shaking thunder and lightning. One of the strikes was so close and powerful that it caused the hairs to stand up on my arms. THAT WAS WEIRD, I’ve never had that happen before! And then I heard such a huge burst of wind that it sounded briefly like a freight train. No warning notification of a tornado from our city’s EMS, of which there is a siren tower about a stone’s throw from my back yard, so I gave up trying to get more information and decided to get some sleep instead.

And then we lost power about one a.m.

So much for sleep.

What happens when everything that relies on a constant power current has a failure? They all beep their power failure warnings. Loud, intermittent beeps, so Hubbin turned off each device after we got out the emergency lights.

Side note, we discovered that the nightlights we purchased that are supposed to come on when the power goes out, didn’t work. Thankfully our backup battery packs were handy and fully charged, as were the rechargeable emergency light sticks, hanging by our back door.

And then, just about the time my phone dinged a warning, Duncan’s emergency air sirens went off, signaling a tornado warning.

Just in case you’re not familiar with the difference between a watch and a warning, a watch means all the ingredients are there; a warning means that it has all come together and can include a sighting.

We quickly gathered phones, water bottles, and flashlights and made our way to our bunker, and about the time we got settled into our chairs and were going to close the door, the sirens shut off. We waited for a minute, then made our way back into the house, of course using our flashlights since the power was still off. It was not restored after 8 this morning. Hubbin and I checked out our property this morning and with the exception of our garbage cans taking off and doing a walkabout, all was as it should be in my corner. My yard has flooded again due to the over seven inches of rain we got last night. Yes, seven inches of rain, but it is a normal occurrence for my yard to flood when there’s more than a drizzle.

My takeaways from last night’s tornado warning ‘drill’:

When there is a prediction of bad weather, move battery packs and charging cables into the shelter, along with shoes and any immediate-need medications and valuables (my purse holds EVERYTHING!)

Remove any obstacles (toys, chairs, boxes, etc.) in the path between where people might be in the house, and their access to the shelter. Our shelter is in our garage, which is notorious for ‘path’ encroachment

Make sure emergency light sources are readily available and easy to get to

Replace non-working emergency light/nightlights

Check battery packs and rechargeable devices periodically

Then there’s the usual – water, shelf-stable emergency food, a change of clothes for each person, and shoes (if you’re a bare-footer like I am), flashlights, batteries, etc.

Today we are supposed to get more of the same, so after power was restored this morning, I began working on the above list. Living in Tornado Alley has taught me a few things about emergency preparedness.