It was still raining like all get-out, but the wind had calmed enough that I felt safe making some quick supply ventures. First item of business: I knew I had a battery-powered lantern over by the Mac. I felt my way though to there and got it. Next: Into the bedroom to shut off the weather-radio alarm. Oh, yes, that was why I hadn't brought it into the bathroom with me: It had a battery backup (thus the alarm going off), but the power cord was permanently attached in back. I spent a few entertaining seconds working out which outlet behind what it was plugged into, then got it unplugged. I also grabbed the pocketwatch and checked the time: It was about 1 a.m. now.

Back in the bathroom with the loot, hanging the lantern from the shower-curtain rod. Listening to the weather radio, I remembered the second reason I hadn't brought it in with me: It wasn't telling me much new, just cycling through the voice-synthesized watches and warnings. (One of the few new items: That last alert had turned out to be a flash-flood warning.)

( After that, it was mostly a matter of waiting... )

For most of us, it's fairly easy to thumb your nose at the weather. You're inside, nice and dry. The air is the temperature you want it to be, you have lights, you have the Internet, you have TV -- you have power. Life is good.

You have power. All that air sitting on top of you has more power, but as long as that power isn't focused in your direction, it's easy to forget just how unbalanced the equation actually is. It's easy to maintain the illusion that your power is greater.

( Until the lights go out... )

(A week late... sorry...)

So, anyway: Part of why I stopped where I did was trying to figure out chronology. I'm not sure of what time I got home; what happened before the sirens started, what happened after. I remember eating dinner -- Marie Callender's fettucine Alfredo, with chicken and broccoli -- while standing in front of the TV watching the Channel 25 meterologist talk about the shear markers showing up on radar just across the county line, and starting to eat faster as it became clear I might very soon have to put the food down and head for shelter. (I also remember wondering in the back of my head whether eating just before a possible tornado was actually such a good idea...)

Pretty much the moment they called it on TV I went into the bedroom to catch the weather radio as it went off. I think there was about 10 or 15 seconds' difference. I don't remember taking the plate in with me; either that was when I set it down on top of the microwave -- or just before I got it out of the microwave and started eating like a madman. Obviously I'd prefer to think I didn't spend valuable time while the sirens were going off eating...

( 'The National Weather Service in Fort Worth has issued a... tornado warning for... central McLennan County...' )

The first time I remember seeing my father crying, I was nine years old. We were living in a trailer house then, out on Spring Street on the edge of Marfa. He had been on the phone in the living room; my mom was on the extension in the guest bedroom/sewing room/office, just off the living room. I think I knew that it was my sister Pat calling from Arkansas, and noticed that the time was unusual -- a bit after 5 p.m. The national news either was about to come on or had just started. Dad put down the phone and broke down sobbing. I don't remember how I found out why -- likely Mom told me some.

The rest I shortly thereafter got from Walter Cronkite.

It was March 29, 1976, and a tornado had just struck my sister's hometown, Cabot, Arkansas, killing five people and demolishing downtown. No one in my family was hurt, Mom had reassured me, and I wondered, then, what had made Dad cry. Much later I found out my sister and her children had not merely seen the tornado but been only feet away -- Pat bodily tossing Brownie Scouts into the shelter of the Second Baptist Church because the air pressure differential was so great they couldn't walk in. My nephews -- ages 3 years and 22 months, respectively -- suffered for years from what would now be called post-traumatic stress disorder, reacting to every thunderstorm that blew up as if they were going to have to run for their lives again.

I'm not sure whether it was some sort of empathy for what they had been through, or fear/respect for anything that could make Dad cry, or just another outgrowth of habitual worrying paranoia -- but I started paying close attention to the weather, and especially to tornadoes.

( This is going to be long, I'm afraid... but at some point after the cut I'll talk about Friday night. )

An hour ago and change, the National Weather Service posted this report on this morning's storm.

OK, that's the meteorologese. In English, as far as I can make out: Most of the damage around town was straight-line winds -- downbursts from what's called a rear-flank downdraft. This is what took out that apartment roof, broke the tree limbs, etc. The Coca-Cola plant, now (a distribution center, it turns out, rather than an actual bottling plant) -- that was a tornado. Ranked lower F2 on the Fujita scale, with winds in the 115 mph range.

	Closer than I'd thought This is a building two blocks from my apartment, in the complex next door. The storm blew the roof off...
	...and it's now uninhabitable.

Coca-Cola plant The Coca-Cola bottling plant took the worst of the damage -- most of it not visible from here. The back of the plant got torn up much more extensively.

Went walkabout with my digital camera. The results are in this gallery on my LiveJournal scrapbook.

Power came back up about 30 minutes ago, it had been down about 2 1/2 hours. The first half hour of that was... interesting... and largely spent in a sweltering bathroom huddled with a cat under sofa cushions. Not a whole lot of damage in my immediate vicinity -- the rain hasn't yet let up enough for me to take a good look around outside -- but what TV stations are still on the air (and they're on bare bones) are showing extensive damage very near here. KWTX is still on backup power, they're reporting. KXXV sustained a direct hit and still is not back on the air. More later...

ADDENDUM: Looked to see if any of the other folks on my f-list around here had posted -- no one yet. bkwrrm_tx? txanne? You guys OK?