Tornado season!

I've been cleaning out the tornado closet.  No I don't call it that because it looks like a tornado hit it, sometimes it really does! It's the closet we use in case there is a tornado warning.  It's a large downstairs closet that is under the stairs.  Because we live in a tri-level home, the back wall is actually almost underground.  It needed to be cleaned out because over the winter months, it becomes a dumping ground for anything the kids either outgrow or don't want anymore.  Each spring, I have to dig like an archeologist through the layers to find the back wall!

Since we live in Oklahoma, tornadoes are a real threat.  Each spring, we have a few tornado warnings that send me close to the closet.  I say close to the closet because I've never actually had to take cover here, I did a couple of times growing up.  When the kids were younger, they loved storm warnings because that meant they got to play in the closet!  They thought it was tons of fun.  I wonder what they would think now if I said everytime it got bad outside, 'kids go to the closet!'  They'd probably be calling DHS and turning me in! 

One time, when I first started teaching in Oklahoma, a siren sounded and everybody thought it was a fire drill.  All the kids and teachers went outside.  The principal came out and said 'it's a tornado drill!'  We all laughed that the entire school had become Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz!  But in Oklahoma, the first thing you do when a storm approaches is go look outside!  Oklahomans are a peculiar lot of people.  We don't take others word for things, we like to see it ourselves.  I guess it has to do with the fact that most of us are not too many generations away from being pioneers who had to take care of themselves. So when the weatherman says to take cover, we head outside to look at the sky ourselves.  If we see that old twister headed our way, then we will take cover.  Well, I'm ready...my closet is cleaned out, my radio has fresh batteries, I even have a couple bottles of water and some snacks.  Tornado season, take your best shot!