Then came a tornado warning for the little nearby town. The sky was dark to the southwest. I put on wool socks and rubber boots, grabbed my purse and the big flashlight and headed toward the fruit cellar. Then I saw it. Hanging down from the dark sky was a wedge tornado. It wasn't touching down and I couldn't tell if it was rotating. There was no time to take a picture.
Down in the cold fruit cellar, I heard what surely sounded like a tornado.
One other time in my life I heard a tornado. It was 1957. We had gone to the basement because the sky looked creepy. My mom was going to the A&P grocery store in nearby Ruskin Heights. However, she didn't like the look of the sky. In those days, people didn't depend on Weather Radio. My older sister was at some school function. We thought she'd come home. We heard what sounded at first like the overhead garage door opening. It was a manual one; perhaps they hadn't invented the motorized type. Anyway, the sound didn't quit.
Later, we learned on the t.v. (yes, it had been invented) that a tornado had wiped out that grocery store and a subdivision. Most of the houses didn't have basements. 37 people were killed.
The sound is like a roll of thunder or a train, but there are no breaks in the sound. It just goes on and on. It's very loud. I had my cell phone and left word for Chris and Lis to check on me. There was a strong wind and some hail. Then I believe that the tornado, sensing that I wasn't coming out, moved on.
Once heard, it's not a sound a person forgets. There is nothing like it.
The next day, I found this living hickory broken at the base. The tornado sound was so loud that I didn't hear it fall, though it wasn't far from the fruit cellar. The damage here probably was just wind, because other trees were not affected. Tornadoes are not so selective.
The tornado was listed among several in the area that day. It had touched down and uprooted some trees and did some structural damage right around the time when I saw it.
Lots of people in Missouri who remember the Ruskin Heights tornado are quick to seek shelter when there is a possibility of a house being dropped on us. We don't have the hubris that keeps us watching an approaching funnel to see what happens.
