One year ago we got a mighty storm through here. I remember the day clearly. It started off with me cutting grass. We have 10 acres of land with 5 grassy and 5 being woods. So, that day I started late morning around 10-11am to cut the grass. I fired up the riding mower and started to go at it. Cut the front yard and the section on the other side of the driveway while it was sunny, so I moved onto the field.

As I cut away at the field, which takes the longest time even though I keep the grass very short, it started to get cloudy to the northwest. Now, it wasn’t super-fast or slow either, just a typical build in of a storm. Since my eyes are sensitive to sun (comes from wearing photo chromatic lenses when young) so I could see it clearly because my RayBans cut the summer haze away.

The storm continued to come in as I finished the field. I knew it was going to hit in the not too distant future, so I started to race along as I cut beside the house and then the back yard, the entire time, it started to get darker and darker. Once I finished I rode the mower to the top of the driveway and got the paper and mail. By now it was getting quite dark so I booked it back down the hill, parked the mower outside the truck and then went inside to take my shower. When I got out, I could hear some rumbles of thunder and then remembered I forgot the paper and mail outside so I raced outside to get it. By now it was thundering often and the wind was kicking up.

So, I got into the house and cut the police scanner on just in time to get an alert for a Severe Thunderstorm, which meant it was going to be bad, so I call my dad up to warn him it was coming towards his work. The moment I picked up the phone, the alert went off again for a Tornado and wouldn’t end until 3pm. Now it’s 230pm so I knew it hadn’t gotten to me yet. I tell him about the warning and then the power goes out…killing the cordless phone.

By this time the wind was howling and the storm was upon me. I raced to my room, grabbed my cell phone and went into the closet because it was the only room that didn’t touch an outside wall. I then called her and told her about the storm.

Debris is hitting the house at this time and the rain’s coming down so hard it sounds like someone’s driving nails into the roof. I’m rather scared, so I’m telling her all about the storm…and then things went silent. When I mean silent, I mean Silent. It was like being in a soundproof room and the words of a friend of mine who lived in the Midwest came to the forefront of my thoughts. “If it goes dead silent during a storm, then get into cover because a tornado is close!” So, I tell my mother about it.

I’d no sooner gotten the words out of my mouth before debris slammed into the house, the wind grew stronger than ever, and the rain just hammered the roof like hail. This continued for about a minute and then stopped. For the next five minutes until the alert ended, I told mother what happened. I came out of the closet (no pun intended) and looked outside and the sun was shining! Now, remind you, it took well over an hour for the storm to reach me!

The tops of several trees were missing, another tree by the house was cracked (and had to be cut down) and several window screens were blown off the house and lay in the back yard. I got into the truck and the damage in the area was heavy…trees down on houses..power gone…everything.

National Weather Service proceeded to try to tell us it was a ‘straight line wind event.’ Keep in mind, there was a tornado warning in effect. So, how stupid do they think we are? A twister came through but they didn’t want to admit it and here’s why. Most homeowner’s insurance policy’s do not cover wind events like Hurricanes and Tornadoes. While getting an occasional storm (or a hurricane 5-6 years apart) insurance around here will pay. However, if it came out tornadoes were rather often, then we’d all have to get riders on our policies to cover it.

So, the tornado came, it hit and it conquered before leaving.