Lying on my bed, with remote control in one hand, a bag of chips in the other, I sat watching The Alaska Experiment.

The setup for this reality show is interesting.  Instead of survival experts like Les Stroud (Survivorman) or Bear Grylls (Man vs. Wild) trotting through the wilderness, this show has ordinary people facing the wilds of Alaska.

I have a healthy skepticism of television, but this show doesn’t seem overly staged.  The cast has been given some level of survival training, but most of them are from the city with little or no experience in living in extremes.

The appeal for me is to see the adaptive transformation of people.  It is inspiring to see a group in a foreign environment feel so hungry, so worn out, yet they are able to overcome obstacles. 

In the beginning, there were nine volunteers for the trek through the wilderness.  The twist is, the most experienced members were the first to give up.  Turns out, since they were the ones with the most knowledge, they couldn’t transition to group membership. 

Frustration, anger and sheer pride caused them to lose their edge, and to quit.  Since it is a TV show, they just had to push a button and have a helicopter come in and pick them up.

In real life, they wouldn’ t have that choice.  Either they’d have to strike out on their own, go off and die, or figure out how to play nice in the sandbox.

There was also one straggler that was physically unable to keep up, and the strongest of the group shunned him.

I like to be able to see this type of show, because if I have to face these type of situations out in the real world, maybe I can anticipate some of these problems, and prevent or minimize the episodes.

Oh, what kind of chips was I eating?  I like Doritos Naturals Blue Corn Chips…

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“…all residents in adjacent counties are advised to take shelter immediately. A tornado has been sighted, and may have already touched down. Stay tuned for more information…”

My 19 year old son looked at me with a certain level of teenage contempt. “C’mon, Mom, I want to watch a movie!” He tried to stick a tape in the VCR. I don’t often need to raise my voice to my children, but I turned to him and shouted: “LEAVE THE TV ALONE! THIS IS SERIOUS!”

My boy’s eyes registered surprise. He realized that his mother was on high alert, and that he might be in serious danger.

Continued below…

Max, from How to Get It Done, explains how to prepare yourself and your family for a tornado.

Just as the meteorologist was about to recount the specific location of the twister, our electrical power went out. I was near panic mode.  Standing in the darkness, listening to the distant siren wailing its warning, I realized that our tornado plan was woefully inadequate.

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My husband and I knew when we bought the farm back in the ’70s that the area was often hit by tornados.  Since we have five children, it seemed wise to make plans for disasters or emergencies.  The problem was that our hands were full, and we just never got around to putting together specific procedures to implement if faced with the unknown.  We only had a vague notion of what we would do if we encountered an unexpected crisis.

In all of our years on the farm, we never did run-throughs for emergencies, nor did we try to do a tornado drill.  We always just told our kids that if there was a tornado, run across the street and get into the deep ditch with the 5 foot culvert.   We didn’t know what else to do, since our old ramshackle farm house has no basement.

Had we run our tornado drill in March or April, we would have quickly changed our plans.  In the spring rainy season, the ditch is full to the top with run off and rain water.  No one in my family is a scuba diver, so we would have found ourselves up a creek, without an…oxygen tank?

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I shouted to Richard to follow me.  The howling of the wind was intense.  I ran out of our front door, my heart feeling as if it would come out of my chest.  I slid and fell as I crossed our rutted dirt road.  I scraped my hands and knees as the jagged gravel tore my flesh.  I scrambled to my feet.  

The fury of the storm pressed me forward.  I knew I had only seconds to reach the safety of the culvert.  The pelting of the rain and hail told me that the tornado was upon us.  Fortunately, this storm was in early July, and there were only a few inches of mud in that pipe.  Thank God!

I spilled into the ditch and crawled into our sanctuary.  I spun around and looked out of the drain.  I exhaled in relief.  I was safe at last!

And then it hit me:  Where was Richard?!?

Continued in Tornado!!!–A Survivor’s Story (Part 3)

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