Tornadoes All Around

We've had quite a season of severe weather already. June 4 saw two EF1 tornadoes strike Ulysses, Dwight, and Valparaiso, and two EF1's hit Ceresco and surrounding areas. June 5th we were downstairs again for severe thunderstorms.

At midnight on Saturday, June 7, my weather alert radio went off indicating a severe thunderstorm was on its way. I was in my standard Bad Weather Mode (dressed, tornado box ready, etc) and sprawled on the couch. I alternated between all the local TV stations to track the storm. It looked like a bad one but I was going to wait until the wind started up before waking Mark and Cassie to head downstairs. Fortunately it JU-U-U-ST missed us, but I kept watching. I switched to Channel 7 and could tell from their map that it had become two tornadoes and I knew Millard (southwest Omaha) was getting pummeled. Even scarier, all of this was occurring between midnight and 3:00am.

Severe thunderstorms, tornadoes, flash floods, flooding. But through all these storms there had, thankfully, been no fatalities. Until Wednesday, June 11.

That night I finally became scared. The storms were running in a long band from central to south central Nebraska and maintained their strength, even growing stronger. Cassie and I were in the basement with continual tornado warnings for three hours. As soon as one would end, another warning would be initiated. We only had enough time to make a dash to the laundry room.

Cassie had no idea it was this bad. Even when I had her practice kneeling on the floor between the wall and the bed, and demonstrated how I'd kneel over her and keep her covered, and that I'd pull a 20" square pillow next to us, and pull the mattress on top of us, she was still having a grand time. She wanted to practice pulling over the mattress, and asked when I'd do all of this. I said we'd listen for loud wind and then we'd take cover; and when we heard a train sound that would be the storm going over us. She was so excited and couldn't wait for all of this to occur. She imagined that the people at Culver's were in the giant refrigerator and she was sorry to be missing that. In the meantime she continued to read to me.

Even Eli the cat sensed something was different about this storm. Usually I have to close the bedroom door to keep him in the room with us (he doesn't like all the noise between the weather alert radio, the TV, and the AM radio), but this time he was hunkered down next to me.

Finally at 9:30 the warnings ended for Lincoln and Lancaster County. We got up off the floor and sprawled on the bed while I watched the TV reports. Cassie fell right to sleep and stayed there until 11:00pm when Mark carried her upstairs for me. We got her undressed and into jammies and she went right back to sleep.

But the storm had ravaged eastern Nebraska and western Iowa, where at 6:30pm it turned into an EF3 tornado at Little Sioux Boy Scout Ranch near Little Sioux, Iowa. Four boys scouts attending a leadership camp were killed.

The previous weekend the parents were helping them plan their trip. The next weekend the parents were planning funerals.