UPDATE: This is Spring, 2013 and the news out of the Midwest is horrific. Over 50 tornados in the last 48 hours have hit Oklahoma, Texas, Missouri, and other midwest and southern states. In Moore, Ok, an elementary school has collapsed with students in it. A daycare also was near by. One of these tornadoes was almost 2 miles wide and looks to be F4 catagory. Just when it seemed to settle, another one reformed and went over basically the same ground. It looks, from the news reports like a war zone in several states. What can we say? There has been death (so far 37, with more expected) from these storms, and probably will be more before this season passes. I pray that people are spared and our nation pulls together to help the recovery. God Almighty, this is just horrible.
Lady Nyo
One year later, Spring 2012, it seems that the weather patterns are still going to torment the south, and the rest of the country. We had no real snows this year, as opposed to last winter, but the tornadoes that have come out of Texas, Kansas, etc. are picking right up and doing their damage to life and property. The only ‘good’ thing that has changed is the sirens, and early warning system seem to be curtailing the deaths and injuries this year. However, 140 plus tornadoes in one day/night, as we saw this week basically in one state, is rolling with a deadly dice.
Here in Atlanta, we seen to be reentering a period of drought again, and there has been little rain. However, the spring thunderstorm season has hardly begun here. We need the rain desperately, but the destruction of tornadoes, sheer wind bursts and flooding we don’t. If any one would be so foolish to deny that Global Warming has something to do with our severe and erratic weather across the nation, they are living under a rock.
Lady Nyo, April 17th, 2012
The following was posted on April 28th, 2011:
A month ago I was shocked and thrown by what had happened in Japan. This morning I again visit that numbing emotional place.
This week violent thunderstorms swept across the Midwest. Yesterday, we saw the same, with even more violent tornadoes sweeping across Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia. Alabama seems have been hit the hardest. There was over 160 tornadoes reported, though there are suspected many more in actuality. What is called straight line winds do as much damage it seems.
The death toll has risen beyond 300, with more to come. Whole neighborhoods have been flattened, blown away, with people missing and still unaccounted. Many were imprisoned in their cellars as news stations are telling us. And the kicker to all of this is May is considered the worse month for tornadoes. April certainly has done enough damage.
We were spared in Atlanta…this time. Immediately south of us, in Griffin, two people were killed… many more in the northern crescent of the state.
The destruction across the South looks like a bomb hit total communities and wiped clean any semblance of life. There was little mercy to be had, but even in the midst of this destruction, 5 newborn puppies were lifted up and scattered, to be found alive, shivering and afraid. Life, and death….is very strange.
The power of these tornadoes were enormous, F4’s and 5’s. Some were over a mile wide. The pictures are almost unbelievable, but the effects of them are all too real.
I got a call from a cousin, Donnie, in New Jersey. (Marge! Donnie sends his love.) Donnie saw the news reports and thought about his cousin in the ‘unknown territory’ of the South. He was worried that I might be blown away like the Wicked Witch of the West. Not to worry, Donnie, but I did clean out a 1/4 of the basement yesterday and took a whole day to do so. The junk of 26 years of marriage and a husband who saves useless stuff down there was hard enough to make disappear…at least enough room to have a sanctuary from any violent storm. I packed up everything I could find that would go into 15 garbage bags took them to the usual dumpster behind a church. I set up two camp chairs, a cooler for our feet, a large plastic container of water, breakfast bars, blankets, reading material and a ‘sand toilet’….a plastic bucket with sand. Who knows what might happen?
Thankfully nothing to us but at least we are prepared for just about anything now.
My husband realized I was exhausted, sore and on edge. He gave me a muscle relaxer, and I slept through everything, even the violent winds and rain. I couldn’t have made it to the cellar if there was a tornado lurking over the house.
The news gets worse and worse and there is a point when you can’t absorb any more. I think I am close to that point. And I just don’t know what I can do to help. Perhaps it will come to me later.
Right now the winds are sweet and the air cooled. The sky is a soft, azure blue. I am not fooled.
Lady Nyo
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