It is April. That means tornado season in Texas.
I knew about tornadoes from an early age. Many homes had storm cellars. Some of the old houses in the country also had lightning rods. We had neither. It worried my young mind that my parents seemed unconcerned about the need for either.
The grandmother of one of my cousins had a little lantern which was the only item salvaged when a tornado demolished her home in Clyde, Texas. I heard the story many times of her home blowing away while she was safe in the cellar. This particular tornado was in 1938. Fourteen people were killed and over forty were injured. A freight train and boxcars were overturned. Clyde had an earlier tornado in 1895. A third tornado in 1950 killed five people. The last tornado in the little town was in 1989.
My mother had some young turkeys when I was four or five years old. The turkeys had free range and were in a pasture near the house when a storm suddenly came up one afternoon. My mother put on rain gear and went to gather the turkeys to safety in a poultry house. I cried to go with her. She was firm that that I was to stay inside and absolutely not to go outside. I was scared for her and for myself. There was lightning, thunder, and pouring rain. Then the wind began to blow and whistle around the corners of the house. That was even more frightening. The windows were rattling and I heard a loud crash. A column on the front porch had blown down. I got in bed under the covers and put pillows over my head. That is where my mother found me sobbing and shaking.
We were living in Abilene, Texas, one spring when my children were small. Tornadoes were touching down near us often. We had a plan and the children knew what to do if a tornado watch changed to a tornado warning.
One of my aunts lived in Wichita Falls, Texas. A funnel cloud was moving toward her neighborhood one afternoon. She and her neighbors were rushing to a neighborhood cellar when she remembered she did not have her purse. The approaching funnel was visible. Despite protests and pleading, she ran back to her house and grabbed her purse. She was running as fast as she could when she reached the cellar. The door was quickly closed. There was extensive damage to the neighborhood, but she had saved her purse.
Hurricanes were a different matter. When we moved near Harlingen, Texas, information on another kind of storm became necessary. We moved there shortly after Hurricane Beulah came ashore in 1967. It was a particularly destructive storm. People were still pointing out the damage. It was as though they measured time before and after Beulah. We were instructed what to do when a hurricane started moving toward the coast. We were approximately forty miles inland from South Padre Island. My husband, Ken, and several of his coworkers were in San Antonio when the first hurricane started toward us. The wives proceeded to get the houses secured and depart for San Antonio. Our son, Kevin, had hatched eggs and raised some chickens. Our car was loaded. A neighbor was to take care of the dogs. I told Kevin to open the chicken pen gate so the birds could fly into trees or take shelter wherever they needed to. He informed me that he had hatched the eggs and raised those chickens from babies. He was not going to leave them. I explained he had no choice. We were not going to take them and he was not staying behind to care for them. Quite an argument followed. He was very upset when he finally got in the car. He was shirking his duty to his chickens. By this time, it had begun to rain. It was an eerie feeling driving past closed and boarded up stores, buildings, and homes. Fortunately, the storm caused little wind damage or flooding. The chickens were safe and happy to see us when we returned.
We left the area and moved to Georgetown. Fifteen years later we returned. We boarded windows and prepared for several more hurricanes before leaving the area in 2000.
We are back in tornado country again. I must stop and go watch the weather forecast.