This is long but I hope it's worth reading...
I was on my way from Atlanta to Los Angeles on I-40. The weather ahead was looking very ugly so I decided to pull over for the night. After I exited the interstate I pulled into a parking lot so I could look up hotels on my phone. That's when I heard the sirens. At first I thought it was a fire truck. But after a minute I realized the sirens were coming from a couple of different directions and they weren't changing position. Then I realized that despite the fact that there was a raging thunderstorm just ahead, the air outside was
so still and had a very cold edge to it. That's when I finally realized what was happening: those were tornado sirens.
That moment, when the realization sank in, is when I felt that shot of fear and adrenaline. My first thought was to get back on the interstate and drive, but I then I realized I might drive straight into it. Or it might almost be on top of me already. There was no way to know. The best thing to do was to get indoors, so I drove to this cheap motel that was just down the street from where I'd stopped. I walked into the lobby and the lady at the front desk was white as a ghost. She looked genuinely scared and uncomfortable. The TV in the sitting area was lit up with EBS warnings and the local news station had interrupted programming. The weatherman was pointing at the radar showing a very large block of severe weather that had produced several violent tornadoes, including some that were still on the ground. The town I was in was directly in its path and it was already on top of us. Great.
I asked the freaked out front desk lady for a room for the night and she obliged. The building was 2 stories and my room was on the 2nd floor. When I parked my car and got out I looked up at the night sky and saw something I had never before seen in my life: The lightning flashes were happening so quickly that the sky looked like it was being lit up by an endless series of camera flashes. And yet... there was no thunder. Just flash after flash of lightning, one on top of the other. But no wind. No rain. No thunder. I think that is pretty much the moment when I knew for certain in my gut that we really were going to get hit.
On my way upstairs I couldn't decide if it would be better or worse on the second floor. On the one hand the people on the first floor would be more protected but on the other hand if the building collapsed the second floor would crush them. I figured my chances were shit either way when I saw how flimsy looking the rooms were. The place was built on the cheap. Once I sat down in the room I called my parents and told them I was in a potentially bad situation and may about to be hit by a tornado, and that if I didn't call them again by tomorrow morning that I was at such and such hotel in Jackson, TN and to look for me there. They didn't take me too seriously at that moment. After I hung up with them I turned on the TV to watch the weather updates. 30 seconds later the power went out. Not much of a surprise.
My room had two windows, one facing east and the other north. I opened them both so I could listen. I'd heard a tornado once before, they really do sound like trains. So I wanted to listen. Also, it's a good idea to open the windows to prevent a pressure differential from building up and blowing out glass everywhere. I tried to listen but there was a problem - the interstate. The constant "whoosh" noise of passing cars and trucks made it impossible to hear anything else. And there were too many trees and buildings to see. So I sat back in the chair next to the window and... waited. That was it. I wasn't even scared any more. There wasn't anything to do, if it came it came. Once I relaxed a bit it didn't take me long to fall asleep. I woke up maybe an hour later. The power was still out, but it was raining outside. Normal rain. Everything in the air "felt" more normal. I didn't have that feeling of imminent danger. But I did hear a lot of sirens - this time it was emergency vehicles for sure, not tornado sirens. I fell back asleep. I woke up again at about 3AM when the power was restored. The weather was calm. I turned the lights off and went to bed.
I woke up early the next morning to find the town I was in on the news. National news. The outbreak had been deadly. 57 people were killed across several southern states.
Then the news showed pictures of the school. Union University, less than a couple of miles from my motel. It was flattened. Demolished. Students were trapped in rubble after the tornado ripped their dorms to shreds. Amazingly, none of them were killed. The tornado had been an EF-4, I believe estimated with 150-200mph winds and something like half a mile wide. It had missed my little motel room by such a narrow margin. Maybe half a mile? Less? And seeing the people who
were hit gathered at a local coffe shop the next morning, I didn't even know what to say to them. I was just a passer by that walked into this and was now walking away. It was their lives that were just turned upside down. I almost felt guilty about wanting it to not hit me because instead it hit them, as ridiculous as it sounds. It was just a truly, truly awful experience. On my way west I saw the aftermath of the tornados for miles. Semi trucks thrown off the interstate like toys, lying on their sides. A visible scar in the earth - downed trees and turned soil that marked where a tornado had crossed the interstate. All of the local radio stations in Tennesse and Arkansas were reporting of nothing but the aftermath, of destroyed buildings and people who'd died. It was just one sad story after the next, but I couldn't stop listening because I was so worried that I'd be caught unaware by another storm.
In hindsight, the "scariest" part of all is what would have happened if I hadn't of pulled over. If I had kept driving that night and not decided to turn in early I probably would have driven straight into those tornadoes.
Anyway, here's a picture of the Union University dorms...
