On Tuesday, April 3, an EF2 tornado screamed through our subdivision of Overland Stage wreaking havoc on the residents. Some houses sustained greater damage than others, and our home, as you can see above, was unscathed with the exception of the flagpole and mailbox. Some of our neighbors were without power for several days and will need to replace roofs and clean up fallen trees. Living in North Texas is not without its risks of severe weather and preparation is essential to an easy recovery. The City of Arlington did a fabulous job of securing neighborhoods and removing fallen trees from the roadways.
I was at school during the tornado with my students in duck and cover mode in the dark. When the severe weather moved east and the coast was clear, we were left without power until the end of class for the day. The students and parents did a great job of remaining clam. I was impressed with our faculty and staff and how everyone worked together through the afternoon. When I arrived home, Bob was there. We took a walk through the neighborhood to check on our friends. Then we evacuated to Kelli and John's for the evening to babysit! Good timing since we were without power for 24 hours.
Without power at home, Wednesday morning at 6:15 I went in search of coffee and breakfast before Bob and I left for work. I stopped at the intersection of Green Oak and Overridge and a man dressed in black with a flashlight rapped on my window. He asked where I lived and my first reaction was to ask him who HE was! Turns out he was an Arlington policeman giving out resident cards for the windshield to "keep the good guys in and the bad guys out". Brilliant. That evening the officer on duty at the intersection was Clint Weil - the brother of a young man who was on John's soccer team during junior high and high school. Small world!
All this reminds me of the first bad weather I can remember. It was when I was 8 and I lived in Houston. Hurricane Carla rammed into the Texas coast as a Category 4 hurricane in September of 1961. In those days people did not evacuate or board up the windows. They just hunkered down and rode out the storm. I remember when the eye passed over us. It had been raining so that you could not see across the yard and the trees were dipping and swaying. All of a sudden it was over! My parents told Jerry and me that it was just the eye of the storm and it was only half over. At age 8 I did not have enough meteorological experience to understand what that meant! It seemed odd for a hurricane to have an eye! When we went outside there was no wind and it was very quiet and still. As we looked around the neighborhood the water in the street was overflowing into the yards, but there was no other damage. My parents said to be very cautious because there would be snakes and other wildlife from the bayou behind the houses at the end of the street. While we were outside the rain started again and we ran inside. The power was off but we had an emergency cabinet of food that my parents kept well-stocked so we had cold dinner and went to bed. By the time we woke up, the hurricane had passed. I went into the backyard and found several turtles stranded. Jerry and I collected them in buckets for some reason - I remember we had buckets all over the backyard full of turtles and toads! No snakes! I guess it kept us busy for the day trying to find more and more displaced reptiles. In the evening we let them all go and by the next day they were gone. These are the memories of a devastating hurricane from a very well-protected 8 year old.
