A tornado scare

We had our first experience of hearing tornado sirens and having to go to the basement, only a week after moving in!

We knew there would be bad weather coming in the middle of the night last night/this morning.  I went to bed after watching some of The Weather Channel and it was already late, after midnight. It took me awhile to fall asleep and I felt a little anxious even though it wasn't stormy yet.I kept imagining us huddled in the basement. Eventually I fell asleep.

At around 3:45 am I woke up to the distant sound of tornado sirens. First I wasn't sure if I was really hearing them, but it was them. Not very loud though. I woke up my husband asking if he heard them too. Then they ended a minute later. My heart was already racing and I went to the living room to put on the Weather Channel again and read my phone's weather app warning. They said there was a tornado warning for our area, and they said specific areas very close to here! I saw the radar and that it wasn't right here but could be coming soon. I knew it meant we had to make our first scary tornado related decision to go to the basement. I got my husband up and he got Kavi, after I had used the bathroom. We grabbed a coat each, I grabbed some water, my wedding rings, my purse, a small crank flashlight and our phones and we went down to the basement a little before 4 a.m. Kavi was a little nervous and wondering what we were doing but he didn't freak out thankfully. We had a spare twin mattress down there and we sat on it in the safest corner. Our basement is only partially underground.

At around 4:10 a.m. the weather got stormy with some gusty wind and hard rain, but it didn't sound like a tornado just bad weather. Our lights flickered on and off, that part kind of freaked me out, and finally went out. So we were in our dark basement, Kavi told us to turn the light back on, we said we can't(hehe) and just used the light from our phones. Kavi ended up falling asleep on the mattress while the lights were off.

A little after that it sounded like the worst had passed but we stayed put since they extended the warming for the county until 5:15a.m. I was able to get online with 3G and post on FB and my phone didn't work well for texting. A friend texted us and I was able to tell her and others on FB that we were okay! The power came on sometime after 4:30 and we went back upstairs around 5:10a.m. when they had canceled our warnings. By that time I had read updates about the weather that said a large tornado was tracked very near our area. We couldn't believe it. It could have been 1-2 miles away at certain points. It missed us. I must admit tornadoes are one of my big fears. And now I feel like I am having to face it! But we plan to make our basement even more secure in one section. It was a crazy night/morning. Finally around 7a.m. I fell back asleep to catch up on rest, until around 10:30. I saw pictures after waking up of damaged houses in neighborhoods I have seen, not very far from here. Wow.

After a crazy morning and a very tired feeling day, I made some chocolate chip oatmeal cookies for a treat for all of us! Tonight will be a peaceful weather night.