Tornado season = boo.

Every year, when winter starts to end and spring starts to show its pretty little head, my heart starts to skip a beat. Why? One word.

Tornadoes.

When I lived in Hawaii, there was no such thing as tornadoes. Sure, we had storms, and we even had one hurricane while I lived there [and one hasn't hit since]. But tornadoes was a new thing for me when I moved to Oklahoma. I remember the first time I almost had a close encounter with one - we had just moved to Oklahoma [August '95], and a severe thunderstorm was rolling through. A tornado hit south of us, but you could see the sky outside our hotel door...and it was pitch black. I was so nervous, I ate an entire box of Fruit by the Foot and proceeded to get sick after.

Ever since then, I've been ridiculously scared of tornadoes. I can count on one hand the number of times I've actually been in danger of a tornado hitting where I am, and I've been here almost 16 years. But after seeing their destruction [May 3, 1999 is still crystal clear in my mind, even though I lived an hour south of all the major damage...for those not familiar with how much destruction was done that day, you can check it out on Wikipedia], learning that they can pop up at any minute, seeing the excitement and fear on meteorologists across the country as they talk about them...I'm borderline terrified of them.

That's why, when the meteorologists in the state started talking about a "particularly dangerous situation" [or PDS] that was supposed to occur a week ago today, my pulse started to race. Thanks to technology, we get a fair amount of warning about bad weather and can usually prepare for it - but tornadoes are a whole different beast. You never know where they'll develop, how far they'll travel, how strong they'll be...they're scary things. And it's not everyday that a PDS is issued; so when the weather stations in the state DID issue one, I packed up the car the night before with things for JJ, and I prepared to head to a shelter [since my apartment is NOT safe enough to withstand a tornado]. The next day, it was beautiful until about 2pm...then, the crappy weather started blowing in.

We were all watching the radars that day and saw that a tornado had developed in the southern parts of the state that were tracking right for us. My assistant director let us off an hour early, and the university officially shut down half an hour later. I had time to get JJ, go get dinner and head to a dorm on campus to wait out the storm with a friend. My mom said that she was watching the weather and didn't think the tornadoes would track for us, but my gut was saying otherwise - so I went to the dorm instead of going home. While there, we watched the news, saw the tornadoes tracking right at us and, half an hour after I got there, heard the sirens go off.