Family Preparation & Survival Guide

     This last Friday was an eventful one for my family and I.  That night just happened to be “Family Movie Night”.  Every person in my family was just getting home from work, babysitter, errands, & Pizza Hut & movie store when we got the news that a tornado was spotted in our general area.  I had already heard about the tornado about 40 miles West of us and knew it would be a while before that storm front would be in our area.

     The tornado sirens were blaring in the distance.  The Satelite TV in our home wasn’t working because of the high winds so we had our radio dialed in to the local radio station.  Much to my surprise, a tornado really had been spotted in our area.  I went outside as fast as I could to see what the clouds were doing.  I got about 75 yards away from our house so I could see above the trees.  THERE IT WAS !!!  The massive twister was about 1 to 1 1/2 miles away from my house.  It was moving in a Northeast direction not at a very fast speed. The way that twister was moving with the wind blowing in the direction that it was, I knew that we were not in danger from that twister.  I suddenly noticed that the wind quit blowing my hair.  My shirt was trying to float up and I could hear a real low pitched sound like a the sound a wind makes when it comes in through a small crack the wall or door.  I looked up and almost directly over my head I saw the clouds spinning in a circular motion with a hole in the center of them and the clear blue skies above the storm shining through. 

     I headed back toward the house as fast as I could.  My neighbor yelled out at me and I looked at him.  He was pointing towards the Northeast from us.  There were 3 other sets of spinning cloud masses.  The clouds would start reaching for the ground and then go back up.  Those three funnel clouds kept doing that until they disappeared into the distance.

     Tornados are a natural disaster that are completely unpredictable about where they will touch down.  The meteorologists may know when they are coming and where the chances are the highest to have a tornado but no person will be able to tell you exactly where they will touch down.  When you hear the warnings, seek appropiate shelter.  

     My first childhood natural disaster experience was pretty rough.  It could have been a lot worse and I thank the Good Lord for that.  My second natural disaster experience was kindof my fault.  Well it was really all my fault.  It was kindof humerous though.

     I was 13 or 14 at the time of this incident.  It had been raining for a couple of days straight.  The steady rain hadn’t been a downpour or anything like a hard rain.  It was Saturday and I had a friend spend the night with me the night before, as youngsters do.  We were board to death from being cooped up inside.  I had a great idea for something to do, or so I thought, to get some excitement out of the day.

     The creek next to our house was about 4 feet deep and moving pretty swift.  There was about a 5 foot drop from the road down to the swift-moving creek water that passed under the road.  I fired up the air compressor and inflated two air rafts.  The air rafts or air floats were the type that one would lay on when suntanning in a pool.  The plan was to jump off the road, land in the creek on the floats, RIDE THE RAPIDS to the end of our yard, & paddle over to the edge and get out.

     Attempt # 1 failed miserably.  We could not paddle (using our arms in a swimming motion) over to the edge and get stopped.  We both tried to bail off, stand up, and walk to the edge.  That didn’t work either.  What I forgot to tell you is that at the end of our yard there was a barbed-wire fence that went across the creek.  The last and only alternative was to grab the fence as we passed under it and manage to get inch our way to the edge.  SUCCESS !!!!!  We had a plan our down pat.

     All went ok for a while.  We were jumping off the road, RIDING THE RAPIDS, and grabbing the fence, and getting to the edge and getting out.  That went on for about an hour.  Little did we know the unthinkable was about to happen.  We had about a 300 yard ride down the creek before we had to get out.  Oh Yeah!  I forgot again.  on the other side of the fence was about 200 acres of woods with some of the thickest scrub brush and briars you could imagine.

     We just jumped in and was getting saddled up on the rafts for a ride when all of the sudden the creek seemed too wide.  We looked up ahead and part of the fence was under water.  The next strands of barbed-wire were too close to the water and too close together to go under or through.  We looked behind us and here came a wall of water with all kinds of debris, tree limbs, and just plain garbage.  OH —-!!!!  We both started yelling!  Nobody was around for miles because we were home alone. 

     All that garbage pinned us to that fence, luckily with our heads above water.  We could not move!!  All that stuff was pushing against us with a force that was unbelievable.  It hurt even to breathe.  Water started pouring over our heads and all around us and over us.  I started pleading, “GOD don’t let me die yet!!”  All of a sudden, the garbage flipped over us and we went rolling through garbage and debris filled water.  Our heads popped up above the water level at about the same time.  There was a raft just in front of us!  We both grabbed it as limbs and debris was beating us to death.  We were working on getting out of the flashflood when all the tree limbs and briars and vines and scrub brush started scratching us all to pieces.

     We finally got out of the swollen creek about 1/2 of a mile from home.  That is not a long distance but barefoot, beaten, & scratched, that was one of the hardest walks of my life.  I was almost too exhausted to walk, too shook up to stand still, and too tenderfooted to step through the woods but I pushed onward.  And you know it, as we came out of the woods looking like we had been in a fight with a wild cat or something,  there was MOM with a belt in hand.  I didn’t care. That was one whipping I was glad I could get and I took it and collapsed without saying a  word.  My friend took his whipping laying down without saying a word also.  

Well Hello to All

                            I wanted to share with my readers a childhhod memory that I couldn’t forget if I tried.  The experience I am talking about is not one of drugs, sex, or anything of the sort but an experience of sheer terror.  It was an experience of terror for me and my whole family.

                           I was about 10 or 11 at the time of this event.  We were camping at Chicasaw State Park in Tennessee.  We were fishing and swimming and picnicing and trail hiking and everything else that one could do when your camping in the woods.  We wasn’t having much luck with our camp fires.  The park maintenance crew did such a good job cleaning up the place, we couldn’t round up much firewood.  Anyway, we were having a ball roughing it in the woods until our fourth night there.  Right at dusk I noticed a change in the cloud color.  The first 3 nights the clouds were a brilliant pink, fire red, purple, & orange just over the tree tops.  That night they were the darkest blue and black I had ever seen.  There was an elderly couple next to us and they said there was a string of thunderstorms moving in and they were coming in fast.

                       I heard that and I started getting upset like the 10 year old I was.  My parents assured me that everything was OK and we would be all right and BLAh, BLAh, BLAh.  I wasn’t hearing a word they were saying.  All I could think of was STAY AWAY FROM TREES WHEN LIGHTNING STRIKES.  So I finally calmed down, we ate supper, put up everything light in weight that could blow away, and we went to bed IN OUR TENT!!!!!!!

                      About two hours later I woke up to the sound of limbs snapping and other campers screaming.  I was HORRIFIED!!!!!  We were in an old ARMY Tent that held about six people.  My brother and sister, who were about 7 or 8 at the time, were curled up into a ball next to my parents in the back of the tent.  I had the pleasure of sitting next to the entryway of the tent and could see out from time to time.  The limbs breaking sounded like rifles firing.  POW!  POW!! POW!!  The tent was blowing back and forth so violently, it would almost lay completely down in each direction and make a fwopping sound like someone shaking the dirt out of a quilt. 

                   There was water rushing under the tent and it felt just like being on a waterbed with someone bouncing on one corner continuously.  With all these sounds of POW! POW!, people’s terror screaming, large things being blown away like the 55 gallon drums that were nailed to trees for people’s garbage, wind howling and swooshing, then came the worst sound I had ever heard.  A roaring freight train coming at us with an unbelievable banging noise.  The banging had no repitition and it sounded like a sledge hammer hitting a steel drum and it was so loud it hurt your chest and head every time it sounded.  Then came the trees being pulled out of the ground and slammed back down with a force so hard it would bounce you completely off the place you were sitting,  GRRRSSHHHH!  POW! POW! POW! POW! BOOMMM!  GRRRSSHHHH! POW! POW! POW! POW! POW! BOOMMMMM! again and again and again!  All the while I could peek out the tent opening and somewhat see small, large and extremely large objects flying past the tent.

                 All of the sudden, faster that it all started, it was over.  You could hear the noises fading farther and farther and getting softer and softer.  What I failed to mention to you earlier is that this lasted all night long.  We stepped out of the tent and the place was in total destruction and the sun was starting to come up.  There were pine trees, too large for 2 people to touch hands around, laying everywhere, garbage dumpsters gone, debris everywhere, 55 gallon drums (for garbage cans) gone, & there was our little camp site, untouched completely.  Except for there was a pine tree laying right beside our tent.  All of this destruction and debris was laying everywhere and nobody was saying a word.

                My little brother was the first one to speak and he said ” LOOK AT ALL THIS FIREWOOD, LET’S GET IT BEFORE THE CLEAN UP GUYS GET HERE!! 

               That is one Natural Disaster that I will never forget.  I am not sure how strong that tornado was but it left a path right through the middle of Chicasaw State Park.  The most remarkable thing is that no one was killed because almost everyone was camping in a tent!