"You Spin Me..."

So last night was a little scary for us Southwest Missourians.  Saturday afternoon we had some major storms (more on that in a minute) and then last night, we got slammed with the humdinger.  Thankfully for me, the worst of the storms went to the north of Branson, but it’s really unfortunate for the people who live there.  There was major damage in Nixa, which is about twenty or thirty minutes north of where I live, and there are reports of more damage in other small towns in the surrounding area.    It was scary watching the coverage on TV- three storm systems in the area, and they weren’t showing the one that was coming towards Branson, which is where I live.  In fact, they didn’t even mention the storm that was bearing down on Branson until it was virtually right on top of us and there wasn’t anything we could do about it.  Luckily, we weren’t in danger, but there were a few moments when I was watching TV and they were saying that this huge storm was practically right over my house.  They were stressing that we should be seeking cover and all that jazz, and I looked out the front door and all it was doing was raining out there.  I mean, Danielle and I were discussing evacuation plans and everything, and all we ended up getting was a little rain, no hail, and the wind blew some.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful that we didn’t get wiped off the face of the earth by a tornado, but the TV weather man got me all scared for no reason.  

Saturday, however, was a different story.  I was at the bookstore, and things had been ominous all day.  At about four o’clock or so, it got really black outside and we heard the Branson tornado sirens go off.  We had had a call earlier from another store manager telling us that we were under a tornado watch, but living in Missouri, we’re used to this sort of thing and didn’t think anything of it.  We also hadn’t gotten a call from the mall office telling us to turn on our radio, so we figured we were just in for a thunderstorm of some sort.  Then the electricity started flickering, and it eventually went off all together.  That still didn’t worry me that much, until I saw what was going on outside.  It was raining so hard that I couldn’t see anything.  There was hail blowing in under our locked door, and my co-worker, Jenn, was inching towards the back room.  The front of our store is all windows, so we took shelter in the bathroom with our one customer, who looked incredibly worried.  It was over almost as fast as it started, so I ventured home, to find that there were no street lights working, there was debris all over the road in several places, there were power lines down and a three-car accident on Gretna road, and when I finally got out to highway 65, there was hail several inches deep still standing on the road.  The ground was white with hail.  It looked like it had snowed.  I have never seen anything like it.  It was a little scary.

Then, this morning, I was reading on the internet, and they mentioned that there was a weak tornado on the ground in Branson, seen on Gretna road.  Which is the road that the mall is on.  I was in a tornado!  Understandably, I nearly “made poopy in my pants” ( to coin a “House-ism”) when I read that.  I’m glad it was just a weak tornado.  It was pretty scary, no matter what it was.  

Anyway, that was my crazy-weather weekend.  It wasn’t terribly severe here, so it was sort of exciting.  I don’t want to forget that there are lots of people in the area who lost loved ones or homes in the storms.  Like I said before, the damage was much more extensive to the north of here, so keep those people in your prayers.