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I used to think the tornado warnings were just hype.

Well, not any more! My attitude changed one day nearly 20 years ago, in the summer of 1991. Now I pay attention to the sky, weather reports, and I take plenty of precautions.

It all started on that July 4th weekend. Since Independence Day was celebrated on Thursday that year, we were blessed with a long holiday weekend. My daughter was in from Canada, celebrating U.S. & Canadian independence, plus visiting family and friends. We enjoyed typical early July weather in Michigan–hot and steamy. We needed to beat the heat, so Sunday afternoon we decided that we just had to go to the beach. The sun was hot, the water was cold, and we were enjoying PERFECT weather.


There was one troubling aspect to the day: we had heard there were severe storms in southwestern Michigan. We had no real concerns, because we live in southeastern Michigan, and we were sure the storms would be spent by the time they reached us. Who could look at our cloudless sky and predict the force and fury to come? After all, this was July, we should be well past tornado season.

I learned two lessons that day: clear blue skies can change in an instant, and there really is no hard and fast ‘tornado season’. Tornados can happen whenever the conditions are right.

The beach was crowded even with the threat of impending severe weather. No one else was concerned, so neither were we. We enjoyed the sand, the hot breeze, and all of the people. (People watching is our family hobby—try not to get near us, or we may make fun of you, too!)

My daughter, our family’s sensible one, decided that she should leave a little early for her four-hour drive back to Toronto. If the storm did move in, she wanted to be well ahead of it. In hindsight, I’m pleased that she has wisdom in the face of potential danger. Her decision to play it safe may have saved her life.

After she left, I felt a little lonely and down. I was certain that a bike ride was the remedy for my loneliness, so I hopped on the Huffy and rode off to chase away my blues.

When I left the house, the weatherman on TV was saying that we had a ‘tornado watch,’ which is significantly different than a full-blown ‘tornado warning.’ A tornado watch means that the conditions for a potential tornado exist; a tornado warning means that a confirmed funnel cloud or tornado has been spotted.


My opinion back then was that a tornado watch was of little concern.

I rode east on my bike. The wind was at my back, and it still felt quite warm. The eastern sky ahead had clouded up some, but it was still mostly sunny behind me. I rode for a mile, lost in thought about our family gathering over the weekend. I smiled as I thought about the fireworks, the food and the conversations.

When I finally turned back west to ride home, I could not believe how much the wind had picked up and how much the temperature had dropped—now I could feel the change. I was a bit surprised that I hadn’t noticed it when I was riding. Then I realized that I was out in the wide open, exposed to what could be a very serious storm. WOW!

(Story continued below…)

Pedaling back into that wind was a workout. By the time I got back home, the entire western horizon was filled with dark and ominous clouds. I hurriedly put my bike in the old shed and ran to take the clothes off the line (gotta save money where you can on the farm!). I scrambled to get the laundry inside before the rain started. The laundry room door has a large westward facing window, providing me with a perfect vantage point to observe the changing sky.

A stormy sky has a certain attractive beauty that draws me to it. The rolling and pitching of the clouds, the swirling colors and sheer force of nature are almost mesmerizing. Those black clouds were drawing closer, and I could see a greenish tint in the sky as well. I snapped out of my rapture, and I began to realize the real danger that I was in. I ran into our living room and twisted the knobs on our antique TV. The tube wasn’t warmed up yet, but I could hear the weatherman say (with serious concern in his voice) that the watch was now upgraded to a WARNING…


Tornado!!!–A Survivor’s Story (Part 2)

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