It is April.\u00a0 That means tornado season in Texas.<\/p>\n
I knew about tornadoes from an early age.\u00a0 Many homes had storm cellars.\u00a0 Some of the old houses in the country also had lightning rods.\u00a0 We had neither.\u00a0 It worried my young mind that my parents seemed unconcerned about the need for either.<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0\u00a0 I heard the story many times of her home blowing away while she was safe in the cellar.\u00a0 This particular tornado was in 1938.\u00a0 Fourteen people were killed and over forty were injured.\u00a0 A freight train and boxcars were overturned. Clyde had an earlier tornado in 1895.\u00a0 A third tornado in 1950 killed five people.\u00a0 The last tornado in the little town was in 1989.<\/p>\n
My mother had some young turkeys when I was four or five years old.\u00a0 The turkeys had free range and were in a pasture near the house when a storm suddenly came up one afternoon.\u00a0 My mother put on rain gear and went to gather the turkeys to safety in a poultry house.\u00a0 I cried to go with her.\u00a0 She was firm that that I was to stay inside and absolutely not to go outside.\u00a0 I was scared for her and for myself.\u00a0 There was lightning, thunder, and pouring rain.\u00a0 Then the wind began to blow and whistle around the corners of the house.\u00a0 That was even more frightening.\u00a0 The windows were rattling and I heard a loud crash.\u00a0 A column on the front porch had blown down.\u00a0 I got in bed under the covers and put pillows over my head.\u00a0 That is where my mother found me sobbing and shaking.<\/p>\n
We were living in Abilene, Texas, one spring when my children were small.\u00a0 Tornadoes were touching down near us often.\u00a0 We had a plan and the children knew what to do if a tornado watch changed to a tornado warning.<\/p>\n
One of my aunts lived in Wichita Falls, Texas. \u00a0A funnel cloud was moving toward her neighborhood one afternoon.\u00a0 \u00a0She and her neighbors were rushing to a neighborhood cellar when she remembered she did not have her purse.\u00a0 The approaching funnel was visible.\u00a0 Despite protests and pleading, she ran back to her house and grabbed her purse.\u00a0\u00a0 She was running as fast as she could when she reached the cellar.\u00a0 The door was quickly closed.\u00a0 \u00a0There was extensive damage to the neighborhood, but she had saved her purse.<\/p>\n
Hurricanes were a different matter.\u00a0 When we moved near Harlingen, Texas, information on another kind of storm became necessary.\u00a0 We moved there shortly after Hurricane Beulah came ashore in 1967.\u00a0\u00a0 It was a particularly destructive storm.\u00a0 People were still pointing out the damage.\u00a0 It was as though they measured time before and after Beulah.\u00a0 We were instructed what to do when a hurricane started moving toward the coast.\u00a0 We were approximately forty miles inland from South Padre Island.\u00a0 My husband, Ken, and several of his coworkers were in San Antonio when the first hurricane started toward us.\u00a0 The wives proceeded to get the houses secured and depart for San Antonio.\u00a0 Our son, Kevin, had hatched eggs and raised some chickens. \u00a0\u00a0Our car was loaded.\u00a0 A neighbor was to take care of the dogs.\u00a0 I told Kevin to open the chicken pen gate so the birds could fly into trees or take shelter wherever they needed to. \u00a0He informed me that he had hatched the eggs and raised those chickens from babies.\u00a0 He was not going to leave them.\u00a0 I explained he had no choice.\u00a0 We were not going to take them and he was not staying behind to care for them. \u00a0Quite an argument followed. \u00a0He was very upset when he finally got in the car.\u00a0 He was shirking his duty to his chickens.\u00a0 By this time, it had begun to rain.\u00a0 It was an eerie feeling driving past closed and boarded up stores, buildings, and homes.\u00a0 \u00a0Fortunately, the storm caused little wind damage or flooding.\u00a0 The chickens were safe and happy to see us when we returned.<\/p>\n
We left the area and moved to Georgetown.\u00a0 Fifteen years later we returned. We boarded windows and prepared for several more hurricanes before leaving the area\u00a0 in 2000.<\/p>\n
We are back in tornado country again.\u00a0 I must stop and go watch the weather forecast.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[77,82,80,81,76,78,79],"class_list":["post-468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-other-things","tag-hurricanes","tag-storms","tag-tornado-in-wichita-falls","tag-tornado-season","tag-tornadoes","tag-tornadoes-in-clyde","tag-tx"],"yoast_head":"\n