tornado drill

As you might have heard, there were some tornadoes in Atlanta this weekend. I wasn’t going to write about it, because I wouldn’t want to diminish the problems of people that were affected by the tornado with my silly blog. I was never in any danger, and I dislike when people exaggerate their response to things that are merely proximate to them for attention.

But then I thought about how little I’ve been posting lately, and I figured, if you can’t get a blog entry out of a tornado blowing through town, then what can you get a blog entry out of?

Friday night I started noticing flashes of light. At first, they were small…I thought it might have even been someone on the adjoining balcony taking flash pictures. Then they got bigger and bigger. Gigantic flashes of lightening every five seconds or so. By the time that I was ready to go to bed, one crack of lightening would seem to cut the sky in half. The lower half of the sky never seemed to go dark. Instead, it was more like a brownish-red, lit up by the constant lightening.

It was a pretty cool light show, but I never thought it might have been associated with anything bigger. I do remember thinking it was kind of weird that it wasn’t really raining, and I was a tiny bit worried because it was that kind of lightening that feels like it’s right in front of you. In middle school, I had a science teacher who had been struck by lightening not once, but twice. So from a young age, I have been fairly worried about being struck by lightening. Because I know it can strike the same place twice, contrary to what people would have you believe.

I saw on the news that night there was damage to the Georgia Dome, so I knew something was up. That night it was hard to get to sleep because of the continuous lightening. So ended Friday night.

Saturday morning, I checked CNN and learned it was a tornado. Looked at pictures of damage. I also learned from CNN that Atlanta was “bracing for more storms.” So I settled in for a Saturday of bracing for a storm. I thought about doing my taxes because that seemed to fall under the category of getting your affairs in order, but instead I just watched television.

At one point I checked weather.com and there was a gigantic red box telling me that I WAS IN DANGER AND NEEDED TO SEEK SHELTER IMMEDIATELY. I figured the shelter of my apartment would have to continue to suffice. Do you think a lot of people check weather.com from outside and need to seek shelter? I was confused about that.

Around 4 pm or so, there had been no storm and I wanted to open my balcony door for a little bit of air. Well, right after I did, the deluge began. There was giant hail and rough winds. I definitely learned an important lesson—do not stop bracing for a storm until CNN gives you the all-clear! CNN told me we were still bracing, and I should have listened.

But that storm ended fairly quickly. That night I was having dinner with a friend, and we worried somewhat that going out would be tempting the fates, as if we weren’t properly bracing for the storm. Instead, we decided going out to a restaurant was a sort of celebration of life.

We went to an Italian restaurant, and while we were eating, all these kids in prom attire came in. The waiter told us that some of the proms had been cancelled for weather, but that the kids were going out anyways. There was one girl who had a very ornate braiding design in her hair that was topped off with a peacock feather. I don’t know much about hair, but that was obviously a very expensive up-do, and I hope for her sake that her prom wasn’t cancelled. Also I hope no peacocks died in the making of her hairstyle.

Sunday dawned bright and beautiful, probably the most beautiful Atlanta day since I moved down here. I guess this was the little known calm AFTER the storm.

And that was Tornado ’08. I’m glad I survived, because the new season of Dancing with the Stars started tonight. Steve Guttenberg is on, people! Get ready for the Gutt!