Tornado watches and warnings are normal in our area in the spring. Most of the time, we don’t get anything worse than a thunderstorm, possibly with some minor hail and/or strong wind. One time, we had tennis ball-sized hail, and one time an F1 tornado blew some shingles off several roofs less than three miles from our house. Every two or three years, the threat might be dangerous enough that Ted and I go to the basement to be close to our shelter and to watch the basement TV in order to stay aware of where the storms are.
So far, we’ve never gone into our shelter because of a storm, but we came very close to doing that on March 14 this year. On that evening, an unusually powerful storm system passed through our area with devastating severe thunderstorms and tornadoes, destructive winds, dust storms, and wildfires, causing 25 tornado-related deaths.
Prior to the storm, we moved our lawn furniture against the house to keep it from blowing around in the wind, and we weighted our hot tub cover with firewood because the wind was trying to lift it off the hot tub. An EF2 tornado moving southwest to northeast entered the Greater St. Louis area and crossed a runway at Lambert Airport, but we are were lucky. We are roughly 15 miles west of the airport and only had severe thunderstorms, nickel-sized hail, and high winds (60 mph gusts). Our only damage was a few 1.5-inch-thick tree branches that were blown off our trees and fell into our yard.
Our record stands: We’ve never actually huddled in our tornado shelter, but it’s always ready for us. Our go-to place for a tornado is the basement closet beneath the stairwell. The stairwell is in the center of the house (no nearby windows) and the basement walls are underground, so it’s our safest place. We keep that closet empty of storage items, except for our survival things. Survival items include some old quilts that we can put on the hard, cold, concrete floor, or cover ourselves with, or take to the community shelter if our house blows away.
Author’s note: My mom made this patchwork quilt for me when I was in college. I remember many of those fabric pieces from clothes she sewed for herself and for me. The orange/pink blanket she used for batting (look at the worn front edge of the quilt) was a wedding gift to her and my dad. The quilt is worn out from use, but I’ll never throw it away. Maybe it will even save my life someday if a tornado strikes our house.
Ted and I have a printed list on the bulletin board in the kitchen that tells us what to gather if a tornado is possible. The list includes things like our electronics and chargers, our glasses, cash, car keys, medications, my good jewelry, Ted’s hearing aid batteries, our bike helmets, etc. Everything else is already in the shelter.
The tote bag under the bottom closet shelf has clothing for both of us: a pair of jeans, two T-shirts, underwear, socks, and jackets. These are all clothes we don’t wear any more, but we might have to take shelter in our pajamas, and we’ll need something to wear when we start cleaning up the mess. We also store our hiking shoes in this closet because we’ll have to walk over a lot of broken stuff after the tornado passes. In addition, we have a weather radio, several battery-operated flashlights and lanterns (we check the batteries every spring), water bottles, and a first-aid kit. Our bike helmets will protect our heads, but we have old pillows in the shelter to cover the helmets and to (hopefully) break the impact of anything that falls on our heads.
Since we moved to the Midwest 47 years ago, we’ve never needed to make use of our shelter, and I’ll be happy if we never do, but we’re ready. Climate change is increasing the severity of storms around the world. This year, we came uncomfortably close to putting on our bike helmets and crouching in the shelter with the door closed.