The Great Storm

When I was maybe 12, a great storm hit the little farm town I grew up in. Tornado-like winds ripped through our neighborhoods around 2 AM. 

I was awakened by my father yelling at the bottom of the stairs, “Wake up! There’s a tornado! Get into the basement!”

The tornado siren was blaring from city hall. I heard the voice of a police officer on his car speaker warning everyone as he drove through the neighborhood, “Wake up everybody! Go to your basements! There is a tornado! Wake up everyone! Go to your basements. There is a tornado!”

I jumped out of my bed and ran down the steps faster than I ever had before. Within a minute my dad and I were in the basement, feeling the house shifting as it blocked against the winds, listening to the howling of the storm outside. 

It was so surreal. Scary.

My mom stayed behind to put towels down on the floor because she didn’t want the hardwood floors to get damaged by rain. My father yelled at her, “Get downstairs, Geneva! We might not have a house left in another minute!”

It was the one and only time I ever heard my father yell at my mother.  

The only window we had was a small basement window facing the backyard. Only a cat could fit through that little window. My father and I watched in amazement as giant elm trees in our backyard undulated back and forth like they were small sticks in soft mud. 

These tall trees slowly twisted right and left like seductive dancers, shifting to music. If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I’m not sure I’d believe it.

Within seconds, these two giant trees were downed. It sounded like two freight trains had fallen from the sky and landed feet away from us.  It was a horrifying sound. The earth shook in a way I had never experienced before, nor since.

It was then that my mother ran down to join us. 

My mother and father and I huddled under our basement steps. I looked to my father for strength. I’m sure he was scared too, but he had a silent calmness to him. He did this thing where he’d bite the inside of his mouth when he had something on his mind.

I was just a skinny kid, heart racing, feeling and hearing the chaos outside like some demon surging through our little town. I was hoping we would be safe, huddled under the steps. I was wondering if our house would be ripped away any second.

It felt like the beginning scene from the Wizard of Oz, except this one was right outside the little window. 

I don’t know how long the storm lasted, maybe 15 or 20 minutes, but all the sudden it was over. The sound went from a frightening chaos to silence.

My dad told us the storm was over. The confidence in his voice reassured me that we were okay. We went upstairs.

I put on my sneakers and went outside with my dad. I was just in my underwear. I remember my father and I looking up at the sky. I had never seen anything like it. 

The sky was lit up with puffy, friendly-looking, popcorn clouds. The clouds were purple and pink and green and yellow. 

It was three in the morning. I couldn’t understand where the light was coming from to illuminate behind these mysterious, beautiful, bubbling multi-colored clouds. It was like a dream.

We looked at our yard. Our one Elm tree by the sandbox was no longer standing. It had had a V-shaped trunk with two large trees stemming up into the sky. This was the tree that I saw shifting in the earth as if dancing and fell to the ground just 20 minutes earlier. 

This tree had split in two before it fell. Had the giant limbs fell in any other direction, they would have destroyed our house or one of our neighbors homes.

Our backyard really took a hit. We lost an apple tree and two Elm trees in the storm. And although there was destruction, my father focused gratitude that we were safe, and that our house and our neighbors homes did not get destroyed by these trees.

It was amazing how quiet everything was. Just 20 minutes earlier it sounded like the end of the world was in our backyard. Now I could hear my own heartbeat.

We walked around a bit but eventually went back inside to sleep. 

The next morning, I woke up early, got on my bike and rode around town. My town was little and a kid could ride his bike through the entire town in 10 or 15 minutes.

Trees were everywhere. I had never seen anything like this. A grown-up yelled at me to be careful not to run over electric lines which were now laying in the street. 

I rode down to the park and down to the river. So many huge trees now lay on the ground. It was like a giant had walked  through our little town and pushed half the trees over.

I remember the energy I felt inside. A few hours earlier, I felt fear and excitement as the storm struck. As I rode my bike around town in the morning there was a sense of surreal-ness and weirdness. My town changed so quickly. 

But there was also a sense of relief and gratitude. The huge trees in my backyard became a new place for my friends and I to play on and climb. It was so fun and yet so bizarre.

No one was hurt from the storm and I don’t remember too much damage to people’s homes. People talked about the storm a bit, but the focus was making sure everyone was safe. For the next number of weeks you could hear chainsaws from every section of our town.

People from all walks of life came together and started to clean up the mess created by the mammoth storm. Some people charged to clean up the downed trees while others did the work in return for firewood for their homes for the following winter.

The people in my hometown had their differences. Some were Methodist. Some were Lutherans. There were a few Catholics. Some were Democrats and some were Republicans. There were people of Scandinavian lineage, a few Italians, Germans, Irish and a few families from Vietnam. 

But it didn’t seem like any of those differences mattered at that time. 

Neighbors helped neighbors. Even people that didn’t necessarily like each other helped each other. 

We were all united to clean up our town and bring it back to a sense of peace and safety.

For whatever reason, it’s easier for us humans to put down our differences in times of trouble and work together. 

And when we work together, we are at our best, our strongest.

We unite and clean up messes.

That’s what we do.

Pictured is the two-trunked tree which fell. In the background is the apple tree which got destroyed when the elm tree fell on it. This photo was 10 years before the Great Storm. And yeah, that’s me in my sandbox…