Why I'd Rather Face a Tornado Than a Twisted Warning

My interest in owning a weather radio came late in life, as in a few weeks ago. Lackadaisically purchased at a garage sale for five dollars, at the recommendation of my tornado conscious friend, I have put more thought into buying a loaf of bread. Yet, this revolutionary purchase nearly landed me with a toe tag one day, and a week later befriended us during a life-threatening storm.

Since Tornado Alley natives receive a weather radio for their fifth birthday, my experience may seem a bit extreme to some; yet, may it serve to help the uninitiated.

For perspective, my interest in weather ended somewhere in Junior High--when I (mostly) shed the belief that thunder occurred when God was bowling and that the thunder bolts were strikes. Beyond that, weather worry seemed futile.

How my carefree attitude has changed.

Tornado? Where? Round One With the Weather Radio

Shortly following Myanmar cyclone and local tornado damage news reports, I heard a loud, haunting, screechy-siren sound.

My brain and heart malfunctioned temporarily--pure confusion, but within 15 seconds, I suspect, I made it questioningly to the weather radio located ten-feet away.

Across an alien-blue LCD read one word,TORNADO. I looked frantically at the ceiling and then at the blind covered windows. Gripping the device, I expected to see a funnel cloud overhead. It was as if a tornado was superimposed upon reality and I was immobile.

For several seconds, I couldn't think "death" exactly, but I felt danger. My gut knew what the word meant while my brain's survival mechanism hiccuped. Then I happened to looked downwards.

Across the weather radio LCD screen, the word WARNING slowly scrolled by. Is this why the weather radio found itself in a garage sale perhaps?

The blasted thing wasn't notifying me that a tornado was on top of my head ready to swallow me. It was simply a tornado warning, one of the hundreds of weather alerts and false alarms I had largely ignored over the years.