My First Tornado

Being Filipino, I'm no stranger to storms. Typhoons batter our country on a regular basis. So yesterday, when I started to hear thunder and see lightning, I wasn't worried. I was even excited when I saw a 5-minute hailstorm. I'd never really seen that before. I'd seen a smattering of hail in the past in my country (mostly it seemed like someone was just throwing two ice cubes out the window), but an actual nonstop downpour of dime-sized hail- I thought it was great!

Today though, I got worried. A friend called me at four in the afternoon while I was taking a nap and asked if I knew what to do when the tornado hit Columbia. She said the town was under a tornado alert of some sort. That woke me up quickly! I flicked the TV on, and sure enough, all the weather people on local television were having their 15 minutes of fame with their own dire predictions of destruction.

I switched from channel to channel, and they all had useful instructions about getting into the basement, hiding in a ditch, staying away from windows, sitting in the bathtub, etc etc to be safe when the tornado hit. I had no basement and lived on the second floor, and my bathtub was near a window, so I just decided to... bring out my camera. I figured my apartment was unsafe anyway, so I might as well try to get some video of the tornado.

While watching the weatherman tell me at exactly what time the tornado was going to hit, the power went out, the town siren began to wail, and I started to hear the pounding of what sounded like good-sized hail to me. When I dared to peek out my window, I saw that they were the size of pingpong balls. I'm not going to lie, I was scared of what was going to happen while listening to the hail. I called my brother in California for comfort, but got his voicemail instead (Ack!). So to distract myself, I took some video of the hail through the window. When the hailstorm stopped (after five minutes or so), I began to relax.

I have to admit I felt uneasy that the power was out. This was America! They should NEVER have power outages! Well, I guess it happens to best of us. I had light around 30 minutes later, and I was relieved. All is right with the world!

I thought about why I, proud veteran of supertyphoons, was worried about this whole experience. First of all, I'd never been anywhere near a tornado, so I didn't know what would happen (my only gauge was the movie Twister, but that wasn't very comforting). But I think I was more worried about whether my apartment could stand any onslaught. Houses back home were built for storms, and the ones here looked like they could easily be sucked up and torn apart.

One part of me wanted to pooh-pooh the whole experience when it was over, and dismiss the weather people's predictions as the usual media sensationalism. After all, the tornado was just half a mile wide, and nowhere near Columbia. But I realized that tornados really can and do kill people. It's really all a matter of (bad) luck as to whether you get directly hit by one. My apartment COULD just as easily have been hit by it as any other area in the vicinity.

If there's one thing you should never underestimate, it's the power of Mother Nature.
Next time, I'll sit in my bathtub.