Sunday, May 10th went the same way every other Sunday did here in Nashville, Arkansas. It was Mother's Day. I had spent the day with my feet up, doing absolutely nothing. My husband and children had given me nice gifts earlier, told me what a great mom I was, and I'd had a great day. Around 10:00, I told the kids it was time for bed, as they had school the next day. My husband had also gone to bed, so I had my me time, quiet time, at least for a little while. I was watching a movie on Lifetime, when I heard the thunder and rain start. I paid it no mind, and continued watching my movie.
Sometime after 11:00, I started dosing off and told myself to go get in bed before I fell asleep on the couch. The rain and thunder was getting worse and the flashes of lighting made me jump as I tried to decide if I was ready to go to bed or if I wanted to grab a snack before I laid down. The satellite on the tv started messing up, and then went out altogether, letting me know the thunderstorm must have been getting worse. That's when the tornado sirens went off. I immediately panicked. I've lived in Nashville since 2003, and have only heard the sirens once before that I can think of, years ago. I opened the front door to look out, and was blinded by a spark of lightning, and the wind was louder than I've ever heard, making a strange whistling noise. I ran into my bedroom and woke my husband, telling him the sirens were going off. As I mentioned, the tv satellite had gone out, so I couldn't turn to the news to see what was happening (one of the downsides to having DirecTv) We don't have a weather radio either, so I grabbed my cell phone and checked the weather from the Accu-Weather app I'd downloaded. The alert said a tornado was headed right at us and for Nashville residents to take immediate cover. My heart started beating so fast. This was serious. I quickly threw on decent clothes, then ran into my kids rooms to wake them.
The sirens were still going off and I could heard the sound of things knocking against the house from outside. We huddled the kids into our hallway, the only place in our house away from windows. I tried not to show my panic and fear as I tried my best to remember tornado survival 101. I've never had to experience this before in my 36 years of life. Yes, Arkansas has had it's fair share of bad weather, but nothing ever this serious. All I could remember was to stay away from windows. I'd forgotten to charge my cell phone, and the battery was dying. That was my only source of news to see what was going on. I silently prayed in the hallway for God to please protect us as I looked down at my kids, who both looked confused and scared, and still half-asleep.I jumped a little when things began flying against the house from outside. All I could think of was, this is it. This is how our lives are going to end. We were all facing danger, and there was absolutely nothing I could do to protect my babies, but sit there and wait for it to happen.
I think it's every parents worse fear- not being able to shield our children from danger. Horrible thoughts were going through my mind while at the same time, I was trying not to show how scared I was. Every year, I watch with sympathy in my eyes as people in other cities experience tornadoes and it makes me so sad when I hear of casualties. We watch the news all the time and feel sorry for the victims, never thinking that one day, WE ourselves, just might become the news. We waited, and prayed, and waited. The storm sounded like it was getting worse. I told my husband I thought we should try to go somewhere else. All I kept thinking was our house is surrounded by trees, and what if one of them falls on the house...with us inside. He told me that was a bad idea, but I just felt like we needed to do something. I wasn't trying to sit there and wait for us to be blown away. Walmart was up the road. Don't ask me why, but I thought that would be a safer place. We took a chance and made the three minute ride there. It was raining really hard, and the wind was blowing like crazy, but that was it. There were many people in Walmart, waiting out the storm, and somehow, I just felt a little safer. At first, we were all up front, but the managers were keeping an eye on the storm and minutes later, they told everyone to head to the back, towards Lay-A-Way. We waited and waited, still nothing happened. After about a half hour, they told us all it was okay to leave. *In hindsight, I should have listened to my husband, who had told me that he didn't think it was safe for us to leave the house at that time, because with it being dark, we couldn't exactly see and could be driving right into danger; but seeing how freaked out I was, he wanted to do what he had to do to calm me down.*
We went back home, which thankfully, was still in tact. The satellite was going in and out at that point. It looked like the worst part of the storm had passed over us, although it was still storming bad outside. Eventually, my family laid down and tried to sleep, but there was no way I was going to close my eyes. I needed to stay awake, just in case something else happened. With the satellite going in and out, I tracked the storm from AR Weather Watchers, a page I follow on Facebook. That's when I saw that across town, unfortunately, Michael & Melissa Mooneyhan, hadn't made it. At first, I told myself not to believe everything on social media, but when the tv came back on, my heart sank as I listened to meterorologist Ron Young say he'd gotten word of lives lost. The couple had been killed while trying to protect their daughter from the storm when their trailer home had flipped and exploded. A search dog found their bodies.
I work as a cashier, and while I didn't know them personally, I remember faces, and I've seen both of them before in passing. The next morning, I drove around town, trying to see what damages had been caused. The storm had left a mess of uprooted trees, some on top of people's homes, and shingles and roofs torn off buildings. 4 or 5 of the trailers in the mobile home park Michael & Melissa once lived in, were completely destroyed. Now, the city is trying to clean up and help the families affected by the storm, which was was determined by the National Weather Service to be an E-F2 tornado, with winds up to 125 miles/hour. Two young lives are lost, and their 1 year old daughter will never know them. But hopefully when she gets older, she'll come to find out the ultimate sacrifice her parents had made trying to save her. I can only imagine what they were feeling and thinking in those last moments, as I had been huddled in the hallway with my children doing the same thing a short time earlier. I can only pray that they didn't suffer.
We all like to think sometimes that certain things can't happen to us. For some reason, I'd never thought I would ever have to worry about something as serious as this happening in Nashville. I know natural disasters can happen any and everywhere, I'm not that stupid; but like I said, I've been living here for over ten years, and was born and raised in Arkansas, and while we've had storms, nothing ever got even close to being this bad, where I live. When we do get really bad weather, it's usually up in the northern part of the state. A thunderstorm was just one of those things I kind of got used to. Before the sirens started going off, I'd just told myself that it would be over in a few minutes. I thought nothing of it. We get comfortable in certain situations. We think, it won't happen to us. I've always known that tomorrow is never promised to anybody, but when the time comes and you're suddenly faced with a situation that could end your life, there is no way to prepare for it. It was an eye-opener, for sure. My thoughts and prayers are with The Mooneyhan's family and daughter. Rest in peace Michael & Melissa. Click the link to read story.
#Tornado #Storm #Nashville #Arkansas
No comments:
Post a Comment