Live Free Learn Free Blog » Terrible Tuesday <title> <link rel="stylesheet" href="http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/wp-content/themes/thirteen/style.css" type="text/css" media="screen" /> <link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS 2.0" href="http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/feed/" /> <link rel="alternate" type="text/xml" title="RSS .92" href="http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/feed/rss/" /> <link rel="alternate" type="application/atom+xml" title="Atom 0.3" href="http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/feed/atom/" /> <link rel="pingback" href="http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/xmlrpc.php" /> <style type="text/css"> </style> <link rel='archives' title='August 2007' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2007/08/' /> <link rel='archives' title='July 2007' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2007/07/' /> <link rel='archives' title='June 2007' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2007/06/' /> <link rel='archives' title='April 2007' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2007/04/' /> <link rel='archives' title='March 2007' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2007/03/' /> <link rel='archives' title='January 2007' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2007/01/' /> <link rel='archives' title='December 2006' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2006/12/' /> <link rel='archives' title='November 2006' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2006/11/' /> <link rel='archives' title='October 2006' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2006/10/' /> <link rel='archives' title='September 2006' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2006/09/' /> <link rel='archives' title='August 2006' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2006/08/' /> <link rel='archives' title='July 2006' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2006/07/' /> <link rel='archives' title='June 2006' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2006/06/' /> <link rel='archives' title='May 2006' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2006/05/' /> <link rel='archives' title='April 2006' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2006/04/' /> <link rel='archives' title='March 2006' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2006/03/' /> <link rel='archives' title='February 2006' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2006/02/' /> <link rel='archives' title='January 2006' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2006/01/' /> <link rel='archives' title='December 2005' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2005/12/' /> <link rel='archives' title='November 2005' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2005/11/' /> <link rel='archives' title='October 2005' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2005/10/' /> <link rel='archives' title='September 2005' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2005/09/' /> <link rel='archives' title='August 2005' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2005/08/' /> <link rel='archives' title='July 2005' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2005/07/' /> <link rel='archives' title='June 2005' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2005/06/' /> <link rel='archives' title='May 2005' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2005/05/' /> <link rel='archives' title='April 2005' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2005/04/' /> <link rel='archives' title='March 2005' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2005/03/' /> <link rel="EditURI" type="application/rsd+xml" title="RSD" href="http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/xmlrpc.php?rsd" /> </head> <body> <div id="headwrapper"> <div id="header"> <h1 id="title"><a href="http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog">Live Free Learn Free Blog</a></h1> </div> </div> <div id="wrapper"> <div id="content"> <div class="post" id="post-268"> <h2 class="posttitle"><a href="http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2007/07/18/terrible-tuesday/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent link to Terrible Tuesday">Terrible Tuesday</a></h2> <p class="postdate"> July 18th, 2007 at 4:17 pm (<a href="http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/category/musings/" title="View all posts in Musings" rel="category tag">Musings</a>) </p> <div class="postentry"> <p>I just glanced outside and noticed that the sky had that ominous, brown, tornado-y tint that reminds me of my hometown, and it occurred to me that tornado season is, for the most part, over.</p> <p>Once upon a time, I could never have just breezed through tornado season without a second thought. Growing up, I lived in a town that was dotted with <a target="_blank" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmragNQ_TfY">tornado sirens</a>. We were under what seemed like a constant tornado watch from about mid-March to mid-June. It was routine to have to file into the school hallway and crouch down against the wall with our heads buried under our hands. And at home, we had our tornado gear ready in the utility room - the weather alert box, the battery-operated radio, a cordless phone, flashlights, pillows, beanbags, and (if I remember correctly) a football helmet for my brother. If my mother had time, she would always pull a mattress off their bed for us to hide beneath.</p> <p>We lived in Tornado Alley. And not just any town in tornado alley. We lived in Wichita Falls, TX, a town with a long memory of <a target="_blank" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_River_Valley_Tornado_Outbreak">Terrible Tuesday</a>.</p> <p><img alt="terrible-tuesday.jpg" id="image280" src="http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/07/terrible-tuesday.jpg" /></p> <p>On April 10, 1979, 13 tornadoes formed in the region, and 3 of those combined into one super tornado that ripped through Wichita Falls. In fact, we lived in the tornado’s former path, along Southwest Parkway next to Memorial Stadium and McNeil Junior High (a school that seemed to have more “disaster drills” than most others - I wonder why). The tornado’s swath of destruction was an astounding 8 miles wide, causing $400 million in property damage and leaving over 20,000 people (more than a fifth of the city’s population) homeless. 2,000 people were injured, and 42 died.</p> <p>I was small when the tornadoes hit, and we lived, not in Wichita Falls, but in Seymour, TX (where one of the three tornadoes formed). I don’t remember that night at all, and my mother, being from a small town in Pennsylvania, thought the sirens were to call the volunteer firefighters. We didn’t take cover, but she did wonder how big the fire must have been. Those sirens just kept wailing and wailing.</p> <p>When we moved to Wichita Falls a few years later, many of our neighbors had storm shelters dug into their backyards, and the people who sold these huge concrete rooms did a brisk business in the town. In fact, a few years ago, before we moved, I almost decided on a house simply <em>because </em>it had one of these shelters. Tornadoes are nothing to take lightly in Wichita Falls.</p> <p>We were used to it, for the most part. Used to the adults remembering that day, telling us how they had survived, where they had taken shelter. Used to the sirens wailing in all seasons - that first Monday of the month test at noon. Used to disaster drills. Used to that ominous, brown sky.</p> <p>Now, here I am in Austin. Sure, the sky looks brown and frightening, but I don’t worry too much. There’s no tornado “season” here. Heck, they haven’t even felt the need to erect sirens. It’s kind of nice, really, not to have the threat of giant tornadoes constantly in the back of my mind for several months each year….</p> <p><a target="_blank" href="http://www.weatherenthusiast.com/wxpics/1979_0410/index.html">Photos of the Terrible Tuesday tornado<br /> </a><a target="_blank" href="http://www.srh.noaa.gov/oun/wxevents/19790410/media.php">Windows Media video and audio files about Terrible Tuesday<br /> </a><a target="_blank" href="http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.richardcox.net/images/blog/wfwidening.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.richardcox.net/061306.html&h=385&w=600&sz=123&hl=en&start=2&um=1&tbnid=oxkby12rH6z51M:&tbnh=87&tbnw=135&prev=/images%3Fq%3D%2522terrible%2Btuesday%2522%2B%2522wichita%2Bfalls%2522%26svnum%3D10%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN">Photographs and captions</a> </p> </div> </div>   <h3 id="postcomment">Post a Comment</h3> <form action="http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/wp-comments-post.php" method="post" id="commentform"> <p> <input type="text" name="author" id="author" value="" size="28" tabindex="1" /> <label for="author">Name (required)</label> </p> <p> <input type="text" name="email" id="email" value="" size="28" tabindex="2" /> <label for="email">E-mail (required)</label> </p> <p> <input type="text" name="url" id="url" value="" size="28" tabindex="3" /> <label for="url"><abbr title="Uniform Resource Identifier">URI</abbr></label> </p> <p> <textarea name="comment" id="comment" cols="60" rows="8" tabindex="4"></textarea> </p> <p> <input name="submit" type="submit" id="submit" class="submit" tabindex="5" value="Submit Comment" /> <input type="hidden" name="comment_post_ID" value="268" /> </p> </form> </div> <div id="sidebar"> <ul> <li id="meta"> <h2>Meta</h2> <ul> <li><a href="http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/wp-login.php">Login</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/feed/" title="Syndicate this site using RSS">Entries <abbr title="Really Simple Syndication">RSS</abbr></a></li> <li><a href="http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/comments/feed/" title="The latest comments to all posts in RSS">Comments <abbr title="Really Simple Syndication">RSS</abbr></a></li> </ul> </li> <li id="search"> <form method="get" id="searchform" action="/blog/index.php"> <p> <input type="text" value="" name="s" id="s" /> <input type="submit" id="searchsubmit" class="submit" value="Search" /> </p> </form> </li> </ul> </div> <div id="footer"> <p> <a href="http://wordpress.org" title="Powered by Wordpress, state-of-the-art semantic personal publishing platform.">Powered by Wordpress</a> · Design by <a href="http://beccary.com" title="Theme designed by Beccary">Beccary</a> and <a href="http://weblogs.us" title="Theme sponsored by Weblogs.us">Weblogs.us</a> · <a href="http://validator.w3.org/check/referer" title="This page validates as XHTML 1.0 Transitional"><abbr title="eXtensible HyperText Markup Language">XHTML</abbr></a> · <a href="http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/check/referer" title="This page validates as CSS"><abbr title="Cascading Style Sheets">CSS</abbr></a> </p> </div> </div>  <script type="text/javascript" language="javascript"> var sc_project=605365; var sc_invisible=1; var sc_partition=4; var sc_security="d224bf47"; </script> <script type="text/javascript" language="javascript" src="http://www.statcounter.com/counter/counter.js"></script><noscript><a href="http://www.statcounter.com/" target="_blank"><img src="http://c5.statcounter.com/counter.php?sc_project=605365&java=0&security=d224bf47&invisible=1" alt="free stats" border="0"></a> </noscript>  </body> </html>