One Night in Tornado Alley
In our Suburb west of Chicago
When my daughters were very young, we had a home in a small suburb west of Chicago. Our whole town was situated in what they call ‘Tornado Alley’, a loosely defined swath across the central U.S. where tornadoes happen most frequently.
In the park across the street from our house, there was a tornado warning siren mounted on top of a high pole. The only time we gave tornadoes much thought was on Wednesdays at 10:00 a.m. when the town ran a ten minute test on the warning siren —and God, was it loud!
I learned very quickly, never to put the baby down for her nap until after the warning siren test.
I think we had been living there for about three years when we were awakened by a tornado warning siren during a heavy overhead thunderstorm at 2:45 a.m. The townspeople all did what we had been instructed to do:
“Go to a room with no windows in the center of the house, or go to the basement. Stay there until the storm abates, or the warning siren stops.”
About an hour and a half after it began, the warning siren finally turned off. To this day, I’ve never heard a storm as violent as the one we experienced that night.
The morning sun welcomed us with an odd scene. A tornado had actually touched down on our street and it traveled five blocks right up the center of the street. Everything within five feet of the street and curb on both sides was in total chaos.
Every tree was ripped out of the ground and lying down, some partially blocking the street. Cars that had been parked on the street were tossed like toys onto front lawns and rested on their sides, or roofs. Oddly enough, all of the houses on both sides of the street were untouched and nothing else was harmed.
A strong smell of ozone was in the air and, strangely, it gave an otherworldly feel to the sound of chainsaws up and down the street as neighbors attacked their downed trees.
We all felt very lucky. It could have been so much worse.
Poet/Writer/Author of 5 books.
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I remember one summer, years ago, a tornado hit our downtown shopping area! We've had really bad storms with high winds and rain! Tree branches fell to the ground and some roofs were damaged! But other than that, we really don't get tornadoes in this area!
I didn’t realize you were from the Chicago area. I thought I knew the particular incident you were referring to, but the pic you have is color and what I thought might have been the incident were all black & white…plus that one was in the afternoon anyway, not overnight. Glad everything turned out ok. When the siren goes off tomorrow, I’m sure I’ll be thinking of you. 😉😊