When I was little, I used to watch thunderstorms with my big brother. We would sit on the couch on our knees, glaring out the window toward the dark skies just waiting to see the next lightning strike. There was little fear to be had. North Carolina has thunderstorms every spring and sometimes they are loud but I learned from an early age not to be afraid. My Dad would say, "It's just thunder, every thing's fine".
Then, when I was in the eighth grade we had a terrible hurricane. The National Weather Service named the storm "Fran". Any North Carolina native will tell you that Fran was powerful and left its mark on our state for a long time. Our family experienced power outages but overall we were fortunate enough to keep our home and cars with little damage.
On April 16th 2011, I realized once again the strength of mother nature. North Carolina is not tornado alley. We rarely have tornadoes and Carolinians almost never get to see them up close. On that day we did.
With over 40 confirmed tornado touch downs, it is amazing that our state is still in tact at all. I was home alone and so I went to spend the day with my brother's family on a whim. I had a feeling that the storms were bad but there was no way we could have predicted the kind of threat that they became.
The movie Twister came to my mind today when I drove past the destruction on South Saunders Street in Raleigh. In the film, Helen Hunt-the female lead actress, grew up to become a storm chaser. She was driven to understand why catastrophe and death could occur to one person's family, while another family was spared. Hunt's family was completely devastated by a tornado and her goal as a storm chaser was to help other families from experiencing that same devastation.
I always thought that it was crazy for people to live in states where tornadoes occur regularly. What I now realize is that we shouldn't assume we are safe because we rarely see severe storm damage like those states do. My family and I are fortunate and I will not take that for granted. But the question that remains is: How can a tornado completely shatter the lives of some while leaving others unscathed? We may never know. My thoughts are with you all.
Donations can be made here: Triangle Red Cross
