Tornadoes and floods

Our trip home from Global Finals was pretty eventful. I'll always remember it, for it was rather frightening.

On our second day of trekking home, the news report playing on the hotel lobby television was filled with forecasts for a horrendous storm. The storm front extended from Little Rock, Arkansas to Austin, Texas.....which was our entire route for the day. Officials were advising people to stay indoors all day and be watchful for tornadoes. This storm system was a perfect recipe for extreme weather, and was forecast to spawn dozens of tornadoes throughout the country, with severe thunderstorms and very high winds affecting 10 states.  There was no way around this storm, and it wasn't an option to delay our homecoming for another day. (We were scheduled to move to Utah in 4 days and had too much work to do at home.)

We carefully reviewed the safety guidelines of what to do if you're stuck in a car during a tornado, then set off on our journey. The first several hours of our drive passed by uneventfully, with just steady rain and low visibility on the roads. As we entered Texas, the weather became more and more oppressive.

The scariest part was when we were only a couple hours from home. The wind howled and was pummeling our van, as if trying to push us off the road. It made driving difficult. It was raining so hard there was an inch of standing water on the highway.  Large hail filled the air, making a deafening ruckus as the hailstones beat upon our vehicle. The clouds were an impenetrable black blanket, and they were pressing near the earth so low that they touched the tops of the street lights. They were thick and pitch black, and were churning in a mesmerizing way.  I had never seen anything like it.

The children were frightened and huddling in the back seat, covering their heads with backpacks as protection against possible projectiles if our windows shattered. There was no place to pull over for safety, so we sped on at 90 miles an hour. All the traffic around us was also speeding- we universally just wanted to get out from under this ominous storm. My friend was driving, and I was on the lookout for funnel clouds. As I watched out my window, I saw the thick clouds directly ahead of us start swirling.

I had often experienced intense nightmares of tornadoes, and this storm really terrified me. Now I was watching the birth of a funnel cloud, and we had no way to avoid it. There were no exits off the highway, and no place to shelter from this storm. Time slowed down while I watched the clouds dance in tight circles near us. The children couldn't see it, since they were hiding in the back seat, but they were afraid and were squealing that they thought we might die. Keeping an eye on the funnel cloud, I told them there wasn't anything to be worried about and we'd be just fine. (Does that count as a lie?)

At this moment, I was looking at one of my biggest fears. I thought we really could die here- if not from the tornado, we could die from a terrible traffic accident. Time froze completely as I assessed my readiness to meet my Maker. I felt a strange calm in the midst of this raging storm. I realized everything would be okay, whether we lived or not. I accepted the fact that we might die, and that seemed to eliminate some of my fear as I continued watching the storm with an unusual feeling of detachment.

We passed the funnel cloud before it could touch down, and sped to the nearest building we could find: a gas station. Rushing inside, we searched for a room without windows. We initially crowded into the refrigerator, then moved to a restroom where there was more space. We hunkered down with other families and listened to the updates on a weather radio. Over half-a-dozen tornadoes touched down in our vicinity. We crouched in the restroom for half an hour, just waiting.

How blessed we felt when the worst of the storm passed and we could continue our journey! After dropping off our friends, we headed home to our farm. Our path home was obstructed by flash floods. The storm system had dropped so much water that several counties across Texas were flooding severely.  Our road home crossed a few bridges, and the rivers had risen 20 feet. The bridges disappeared under 2 feet of raging brown water, and families were stranded on both sides of the bridge. There was a crowd of people just standing there, watching the water and figuring out what to do.

We drove all over the country side, trying various routes home. Every route we found crossed a river, and every bridge was underwater. There was no way home. We went back to town and purchased dinner at Subway, killing time while we explored our options for the night. The restaurants were packed with other families who couldn't go home, and there was a tired but friendly camaraderie. The police told us the flooding would go down in a few hours, so we just had to wait for a while. After hours of waiting, the bridges emerged from the water and we could finally return home.

I was a bit worried to explore the storm damage on our farm- we wouldn't have much time to repair any problems before the house sold in a few days, and I was worried any damage might make the buyers back out. I expected to see broken tree limbs falling through the roof of our house (we have towering oaks surrounding our home, and limbs frequently fall off in storms- luckily we hadn't had any problems yet.....but this storm was so intense!)

Our driveway was packed full of debris- a massive rotting mat 12 inches deep of tightly packed leaf litter and bits of garbage that had been collected and deposited by the ebbing flood water. There was a dark brown flood line on the stone siding, showing where the flood crested several inches above the ground. I was so worried that our new wood floors would be ruined by water, so I dashed to the front door. (Actually, 'dashed' is the wrong word. The thick layer of wet debris was very slippery. I carefully picked my way across the mat, but as quickly as I could- sliding all over and waving my arms madly trying to keep my balance.)

It was absolutely miraculous- not one drop of water entered our house! I saw it as a loving, tender mercy of our Heavenly Father, who knew my situation and limitations. I couldn't imagine trying to replace flooring while moving in just a few days.

Gratitude filled my chest and we said a family prayer. We thanked the Lord for protecting us during our drive home, for protecting our farm from the worst of the flooding, and protecting our house from water damage or tree limbs. Our animals were safely huddled in the barn, and the property was fine (very muddy and waterlogged, but fine).

The Lord is so good to us!