Tuesday's tornadoes in Tennessee
Mar 4, 2020 21:36:04 GMT -5
Post by ✞~Spottedleaf ~✞ on Mar 4, 2020 21:36:04 GMT -5
A little after 1:30 on Tuesday morning, I was lying in my bed, listening to the rain outside, and trying to fall asleep. I was only just beginning to get sleepy when, all of a sudden, I heard something hitting the window. It sounded a bit like ice, but since it was at least 60 degrees out, I knew it couldn't be that. Then the wind started to pick up. Figuring I should see what was going on, I quickly turned on the TV and switched to the news channel. Not much later of watching the news, I heard an eerie noise coming from outside. It sounded like a bomb warning going off, but I knew exactly what it was. It was a tornado siren. Almost immediately after the sirens started blaring, the lights went out and I was in darkness.
My phone went off and alerted me that my area was under a tornado warning. Only having my phone's flashlight to see, I quickly woke my sister and my other roommate and cleaned out the hall closet. Now it was 2AM, and the three of us sat on the floor just outside the closet, ready to get inside it at any moment. Using my phone to watch the news, we listened to what was going on while debating on if we should go ahead and get in the closet. My roommate called her dad, who lives roughly two hours east of us. After telling him what was going on, he turned on the news and told us where the storm was heading and all that. At one point, we looked out the window to see if we could see anything. For the most part, it was just darkness, but then we saw a big flash of light. At first, it was dismissed as lightning. However, after a minute I was pretty sure it wasn't lightning. This flash wasn't like lightning that lights up the whole sky. It was a flash of a different kind. Instead of lighting up the entire sky, it only lit up one area of it, and the light was much lower to the ground. That was likely a transformer exploding, and that kind of thing typically only happens in severe weather like this. It is extremely possible that this is where the tornado was.
At around 3AM, my roommate's dad told us that our area was in the clear and that it should be safe for us to go back to bed. We all did, but I'm not sure how much sleep any of us got. I know that I didn't really sleep. I stayed awake because I wanted to be sure that we weren't going to get caught up in another wave. Luckily, we only got rain and regular thunderstorms for the remainder of the night. Still, the night was long and rough.
7AM arrived, and I hadn't slept for more than an hour and a half. I hadn't gotten any notice of school being closed, so I got myself ready and headed to campus. On the way there, I had to stop at a red light that is at the end of the road that my apartment complex is located on. It took a while to get through the light because traffic was heavier than normal. Once I got closer to the light, I saw why it was backed up like it was. At the four-way intersection, there were police cars blocking off one lane of the road. They didn't want you turning left. That direction was in the same general area of where I saw the flashes of light earlier that morning. As I continued to drive to school, there was debris everywhere, though none of it was enough to make traveling more difficult than normal. In addition to that, even though I only live two miles from school, I had to pull to the side at least twice to let emergency vehicles pass.
I got to school in time for my 8 o'clock class, and the whole campus just had this odd silence to it. It was the type of silence that only occurs after a disaster like this one. No one knew what to say. Only a few of us even showed up to class, but it was just as well since all classes were dismissed and cancelled for the remainder of the day at around 8:30. Classes were cancelled for today, Wednesday, as well.
After I got back to my apartment, I was still without power until closer to 10. That means I was without electricity for 8 hours. So, that's about where my experiences with the storms end.
However, I know that others had/have it much worse. The death toll from this storm is currently up to 24, and the damage in the impacted areas is pretty tremendous. The tornadoes that touched down received ratings F3 and F4, out of F5.
I don't want to get much further into it myself, but if you want to see the damage yourself, there are plenty of pictures online that you could find. Just search "Tennessee tornado 2020", and you'll find a lot.
For now, here's just one picture of an area in my town:
My phone went off and alerted me that my area was under a tornado warning. Only having my phone's flashlight to see, I quickly woke my sister and my other roommate and cleaned out the hall closet. Now it was 2AM, and the three of us sat on the floor just outside the closet, ready to get inside it at any moment. Using my phone to watch the news, we listened to what was going on while debating on if we should go ahead and get in the closet. My roommate called her dad, who lives roughly two hours east of us. After telling him what was going on, he turned on the news and told us where the storm was heading and all that. At one point, we looked out the window to see if we could see anything. For the most part, it was just darkness, but then we saw a big flash of light. At first, it was dismissed as lightning. However, after a minute I was pretty sure it wasn't lightning. This flash wasn't like lightning that lights up the whole sky. It was a flash of a different kind. Instead of lighting up the entire sky, it only lit up one area of it, and the light was much lower to the ground. That was likely a transformer exploding, and that kind of thing typically only happens in severe weather like this. It is extremely possible that this is where the tornado was.
At around 3AM, my roommate's dad told us that our area was in the clear and that it should be safe for us to go back to bed. We all did, but I'm not sure how much sleep any of us got. I know that I didn't really sleep. I stayed awake because I wanted to be sure that we weren't going to get caught up in another wave. Luckily, we only got rain and regular thunderstorms for the remainder of the night. Still, the night was long and rough.
7AM arrived, and I hadn't slept for more than an hour and a half. I hadn't gotten any notice of school being closed, so I got myself ready and headed to campus. On the way there, I had to stop at a red light that is at the end of the road that my apartment complex is located on. It took a while to get through the light because traffic was heavier than normal. Once I got closer to the light, I saw why it was backed up like it was. At the four-way intersection, there were police cars blocking off one lane of the road. They didn't want you turning left. That direction was in the same general area of where I saw the flashes of light earlier that morning. As I continued to drive to school, there was debris everywhere, though none of it was enough to make traveling more difficult than normal. In addition to that, even though I only live two miles from school, I had to pull to the side at least twice to let emergency vehicles pass.
I got to school in time for my 8 o'clock class, and the whole campus just had this odd silence to it. It was the type of silence that only occurs after a disaster like this one. No one knew what to say. Only a few of us even showed up to class, but it was just as well since all classes were dismissed and cancelled for the remainder of the day at around 8:30. Classes were cancelled for today, Wednesday, as well.
After I got back to my apartment, I was still without power until closer to 10. That means I was without electricity for 8 hours. So, that's about where my experiences with the storms end.
However, I know that others had/have it much worse. The death toll from this storm is currently up to 24, and the damage in the impacted areas is pretty tremendous. The tornadoes that touched down received ratings F3 and F4, out of F5.
I don't want to get much further into it myself, but if you want to see the damage yourself, there are plenty of pictures online that you could find. Just search "Tennessee tornado 2020", and you'll find a lot.
For now, here's just one picture of an area in my town:
