I’m Still Here

I’ve sat through many tornado watches and warnings in my time, but I had never seen one before in my life.  When I was four, a small tornado ripped through a nearby elderly community in New Jersey, but I was too young to truly realize what happened.  After I had overcome my terror of the watches, I always just shrugged them off and waited them out, always saying “It’ll never happen.”

This past week, that all changed.

Wednesday was like any other day for me.  I had worked Tuesday night, which meant I spent most of the first part of it sleeping.  When I woke up in the afternoon, I heard about the Tornado Watch that had been issued in the area.  I did my usual shrug, and went about my business.  I my neighbor was even nice enough to stop by and make sure I had heard about it, and hadn’t been sleeping all day.  I sat down at my computer, and checked out the radar feed, which raised an eyebrow.  From the looks of it, much of the Pioneer Valley was about to be hit with a sizeable storm, the worst of which looked like it was far to the north of us.

I flipped on my scanner (because yes, I have one) and made sure my uniform was ready to go, but I was still planning on just waiting out what I expected to be a bad thunderstorm until I went in for my overnight shift at 6:30pm.

The Springfield Police Department called out the funnel cloud as it descended into the Connecticut River at 4:30, and I fully expected it to either lift, or proceed down the Connecticut River as a water spout, and be done.  I thought that we would have a fun story to tell over beers about that tornado that almost hit us.  Boy, was I wrong.

The funnel cloud quickly turned and headed through the downtown area of Springfield, and swung straight up through the center of the city.  It cut a path through Springfield, and made its way east into some of the towns east of us.  Thankfully, the damage done was the worst of it, and loss of life was low.

I am fine, and my coworkers are fine.  A few of them were affected but we are doing our best to make sure that they are okay.  This is not my story of my experience on that first day, but I assure that is coming.  I simply wanted to put something up to let you all know that I am okay.

I don’t think that I have quite slowed down enough to digest the events of the last five days.  When I do, you will know, because it will come pouring out on the pages you see here.

Until then, be safe.

2 comments

  1. Glad to hear how you’re doing- I had been wondering.

  2. Hey bud, thanks for the continual updates. Your posts have been nothing short of incredible. What you all went through was rough, especially for a system not used to it or even prepared necessarily. Glad you all are doing okay and I’m happy you’re still with us. Can’t wait to sit down with you and really discuss what happened.