Hodgepodge-Welcome to May

Joyce gave us some questions this week. If you are here for the Z letter, it is the next post!

1. April showers bring May flowers or so the saying goes. Are you blooming where you're planted as we begin the month of May?

I keep thinking of my pastor saying you need to be planted in a church. I took a month off from ushering in March and had so many people contact me to find out if I was ok, it was heartwarming. I realized what I needed out of my attendance at church and have adjusted my schedule accordingly. And I continue to usher at my normal time and see all my regulars...who are very happy to see me too.

2. On a scale of 1-10, with 1 being no big deal, and 10 being full scale panic, rank your fear of spiders.

Maybe a 3? Big spiders are creepy but we normally just get little ones in the house. I'm horrible at killing them because I can never seem to squish them on the carpet with a shoe. I've gotten better in the last couple of years.

3. May is National Salad Month (who knew???)...besides lettuce, what are two must-have ingredients in your favorite salad?

Croutons and fat-free salad dressing.

4. I mentioned on my blog last week that my Daughter1 will be moving to Washington State after she is married. Of the following sites in the Northwest, which would you most like to see in person-Crater Lake (Oregon), Seattle (Washington), Vancouver (British Columbia), San Juan Islands (Washington), Mt. Rainer (Washington) Oregon Coast (Oregon), Mt. St. Helens (Washington), or Olympic National Park (Washington)

I've been to all of those except Mt. St. Helens which I don't really need to see. We've talked about retiring to the Pacific Northwest because of its beauty. I think I would rank them now as Olympic National Park, Oregon Coast and then San Juan Islands for my current visit list. I was in Seattle in the beginning of March.

5. This coming weekend marks the 140th running of the Kentucky Derby...when did you last race (literally or figuratively) to cross a finish line?

A literal finish line was in November when I walked in a 5K race. Figurative finish line is probably when I finished our income taxes.

6. What is something little you love?

Miniature Reese's Peanut Butter Cups

7. Would you say you are more of a visual, auditory, or kinesthetic learner? Elaborate.

Definitely visual. I need to see it written down in some form.

8. Insert your own random thought here.

Here's my annual severe weather announcement. The people I work with are getting really good at knowing where tornado outbreaks are going to be. The Storm Prediction Center sets outlooks in the future. This past Friday they were talking about tornadoes on Sunday/Monday/Tuesday in the areas they occurred. In fact the Monday ones were almost all in the high risk area they identified. You MUST pay attention if you live in an area that gets a "Particularly Dangerous Storm" notification. They only use that for the big outbreaks. Unfortunately people still aren't taking shelter when they get these notices. Please, please, please, listen to the meteorologists. They are tasked with saving your lives. But only you can act on the information.

I highly recommend that you follow your local NWS office on twitter. Most offices are tweeting actively during severe weather. If you need help finding yours, let me know.

Fridays are Fragilicious

OK. So I make up words. Doesn't everybody? I'm joining up with Mrs. 4444 for this week's Fragments edition. Then she is taking a summer vacation and someone else will be hosting it.

Stupid Criminal of the week was a man from Florida who decided to propose to his lady. Well unfortunately he decided that he needed to be naked to do this. And he didn't have her address right. Imagine the homeowners looking out to see a naked man proclaiming his love to them. The police were called. He resisted arrest and was tasered. Do you think alcohol may have been involved?

In two weeks I'll be packing up and getting ready for my 24 hour flight adventure. Three planes (one flight is 13 1/2 hours) and I'll be halfway around the world in China. Let me tell you trying to get stuff set up when it is night there when it is day here is difficult. But I have finalized the agenda, the hotel reservations and am close to finishing up local transportation. I still need to make sure my vacation part of the trip is done but I'm confident that all will be set.

In preparation for the trip I got a tetanus booster shot. I had always been told I was allergic to it but I decided better to have an allergic reaction to it here in the States than in China. Low and behold I wasn't allergic to this one. So now I'm set for ten years. Woohoo.

My mom is moving here at the end of the month. Last week the senior apartment complex let us know that they had an apartment that she was interested in open. I looked at it and it was in a good location. So in addition to the trip planning, I've got to get her bank account, electric service and the lease all done before I leave. Thank goodness she had the foresight to get me power of attorney. I'm hoping that the moving people show up after I get back from my trip so Dan doesn't have to deal with their arrival.

Whitney's summer class got postponed a week because of last week's tornadoes. The community college that she is going to had some major damage so they needed a week to get the roof fixed and clean up the flooding. So the eight week course will be crammed into seven. For some that might not be bad but she is taking statistics. I'm just glad they didn't cancel completely.

Our church is hosting a fun event for families affected by the tornadoes along with the volunteers and responders. There is a chance of rain but no major storms. I think we've had enough of those.

As many of you may have seen, there were some storm chasers killed in last Friday's tornado here. I work with people who knew them. They were very cautious and didn't take chances. I hope that the lesson learned is that tornadoes are dangerous even for "experts" and that you should not try and outrun them in a car. A car is the worst place to be. Please put as many walls between you and the tornado, get in a safe room either above or below ground, and cover up with blankets, helmets, pillows anything to protect your head.

So after that serious note, let's end with a picture of a puppy. Because really, what could be cuter than a puppy.

Image from Cute Dogs/Pets

Quite the Weekend Wrapup

Well what a weekend that was.

Friday was another weather adventure. We had been warned that between 4-7pm we would have storms that would be tornadic and they were. While the tornadoes were not as strong as the one last week, everyone was in a panic about them. So much misinformation about what to do...when to leave...when to stay. The interstates became parking lots with people trying to flee the tornadoes. Listen, a car is the worst place to be in a tornado. We left our house quite a bit before anything would hit Norman and went to my office...aka the safest building I know.

While it looks like we are waiting for class, it actually is a classroom that is below ground and could hold 600 people if needed. We got there in time for seats and before it even started to rain. The tornado sirens went off as we were walking into the building. We did not have a tornado here but we did have straight line winds at the building of 60-80 mph. A little farther north at my church, they had almost 100 mph because the 20,000 square foot tent that had been set up to hold all the donations collapsed in the wind.

The preliminary report from the NWS is that we had five tornadoes but that number could go up. It is hard to determine some places right now if it was straight line winds or a tornado. Unfortunately several people lost their life, most of them in their cars. There are also several people who are missing after taking shelter in drainage ditches which then flooded with the 7-10 inches of rain that came down in a matter of a couple of hours. I have never seen parts of the metro flood like this. We had almost 3 inches of rain here. We are officially out of the drought.

Saturday we went to help clean up the tent. Basically the tent had to be cut apart and then we had to rebox all the boxes that had gotten wet. Which is mostly everything. They have moved everything to warehouses or it is sitting on pallets in the parking lot while they try and find another warehouse. I forgot to put on sunscreen so now I'm sunburned after just a couple of hours outside.

The weather Saturday and Sunday was absolutely gorgeous. It was almost like Mother Nature was telling us it will be ok.

Sunday after church we headed to Lowe's to buy some plants. I just hadn't had time in May and then with the weather I've been afraid to plant. We bought some lilies and herbs. And then we got some new towel racks for Whitney's bathroom. The one in her room has fallen down so many times that we are going to have a major patch up job to do before installing a new one because the wall has a pretty big hole in it now.

Basil, Rosemary and Lilies

The mailbox has lilies in it this year

With all that going on I didn't do laundry or clean the house. Guess I'll need to do that along with getting back to the gym this week. 

Weekend Excitement

May is tornado season and tomorrow lived up to it. It started around 3 with a tornado about 40 miles north of us. That tracked for awhile and the storm chasers on tv were excited. Frankly I appreciate a calm voice and the normal station I watch just hired a rival stations big chaser who drives me nuts. So much for the calm voice. I can't even watch that channel anymore.

Anyway there was a storm popping up southeast of us but they weren't covering it much because of the bigger tornado on the ground...even though it was over sparsely populated areas. I wasn't too concerned. They even had to drag out morning meteorologists to go chase because all of the other ones were north of us. We kept watching and it was slow moving so we decided to just stay put for awhile. Northwest in town started to get baseball size hail so Dan decided maybe we would go drive away from the storm and pull Whitney's car into the garage. So of course we decide to do that just as it starts to pour. We drove about a mile east and it was clearing. On the radio they were saying a tornado hit our town near the lake which is about seven miles east of our house. We looked that way from the parking lot we were in and could see some rotation.

The big damage from this tornado happened about 30 miles east of us. A mobile home park was destroyed and one person was killed. Mobile homes are the worst place to be. Houses near them weren't heavily damaged.




This was how concerned our dog was before the storm hit. She just got excited to be riding in the car.

There might be another round of storms today.

Friday's Tornado

Well Friday it happened. Norman was hit by a tornado. Around 4 they announced at work that we needed to go to the storm shelter. A great benefit that we have at work is huge storm shelters. This is the first time since we've been in the building that we had to go their during work hours. Of course half the building was gone (probably storm chasing) so we had lots of space. Cell phones don't work very well so I had to rely on wifi. I checked in with Whitney and she kept me updated on what the news was showing because I couldn't get any streaming tv on the iPad. Probably too many people doing the same thing. The forecasters came down so I knew it was serious. Then they gave us the ok to go back. Sirens were still going off outside for town but it was to the east of us. I trust the forecasters if they say it's ok to go back. Dan was finally able to call me and say he was ok. Cell phone coverage was very sporadic so if you plan on that for your escape think again.

We made national news almost right away, probably because half of them were already in the building doing stories about the high risk over the weekend. My mom called to check on us before I had even left work.

When I got home I watched the news and the helicopters were showing the damage. Norman lucked out and no major injuries or fatalities. The tornado was a small one but it did do damage. It hit an apartment complex and then skipped its way across downtown. Somehow it missed two middle schools and a high school which hadn't left for the day.

I went around today to look at the damage. The area near the apartment was still closed because of downed power lines.

This is one of the old trees near a downtown park. They have a lot of concerts here in the summer.

This building got hit and lost a lot of its outside brick wall. They were already tearing it down today.

Norman was very lucky. We know this. Others in the state and Midwest were not so lucky yesterday.

My Tornado Encounter

This is the bigger shelter. It is a classroom built in the ground

Well after yesterday's blog I got to put into action my tornado preparedness. We had been warned by the forecast office that between 5-7pm very high risk for big tornados. Sure enough, about 4:30 there was one SE of us that was coming our way. We had plenty of time to take cover. We gathered up a few belongings, put the dog in the closet (I'm sorry but we couldn't take her into the shelter) and went to my office. We have two huge rooms that are designated storm shelters. They are supposed to hold 600-700 people. When we got to work, it was raining. Dan dropped us off at the front doors and we ran in. He parked the car. There were so many people there. The rooms were full. Like really really full. Like they were going to have to start putting people in bathrooms. They overflowed into the hallway. They put them in the security officer's special safe room. People came in wheelchairs. They brought their dogs and cats. I really think they should have told people they couldn't bring those in because if they weren't in there, they could have gotten more people in the rooms. It was warm and noisy. But I knew we were safe. I went to my office and got my laptop and walkie/talkie. There is no cellphone reception in the rooms since they are so surrounded by concrete. But we have wireless internet and I knew I could get on that. The local tv stations websites were so bogged down with viewers I couldn't get that working. But I could get on facebook. Always good. They were playing the news on the big screens. Finally someone shouted for everyone to be quiet. The news was talking about a tornado coming our way. When they mentioned the name of my building, the room was dead quiet. I also knew from the tones they were playing on the intercom that we were in the way because it was the sound for the forecast office to clear out.

And then it was over. The tornado fizzled out just west and south of us. The other tornado went north of us and fizzled out. Some people I know had a little bit of debris fall in their yard. But we had nothing. Dan went home first to check on the house and he called and everything was fine. Abby was happy to see him but didn't look traumatized from her closet stay. We called our mothers to tell them we were ok. Then I heard how the Weather Channel was saying we were evacuating the building. I had to think about that and they meant the forecast office.

I know people who were up in the observatory deck and saw the tornados. I've seen pictures from up there. Someday maybe I'll go see one. But I was quite happy and safe in the bunker.

The lesson to be learned is have a plan and do it. I know a lot of those people in the shelter probably won't come the next time. They came because of the big tornados over the last month. I hope that they do come back. I want all of us to be safe.

**The photo isn't mine. I was too busy trying to get on the internet to even think of taking a photo. Thanks to one of my co-workers for taking it. It doesn't do justice to the number of people in there.**

Disaster Preparedness

It is time for me to address disaster preparedness. Living in Oklahoma we are very familiar with tornadoes. That is one of the few natural disasters that really have little to no warning. The others being earthquakes and tsunamis (although that depends on how far away you are from the epicenter).

I work with lots of researchers who try and figure out why tornadoes form so they can come up with even larger lead times for warnings and reduce the number of false warnings. And that's what I want to talk about. Please pay attention to any warning, even if you don't think it is serious. These meteorologists have gotten so much better over the years using technology that if they say there is a warning, take cover. I don't care if you have had 15 false alarms and you think you know better. YOU DON'T! Do you really want to risk your life because it inconviences you to go to a shelter?

I really think the media does a disservice when they interview people who say they had no warning. YES they did in most cases. It is just that they weren't paying attention to the warning or they decided to ignore it.

So have a plan. Know where to go. Most of all, pay attention. Listen to the experts.