The Night of Stanford's
Twister
By Willy, 14
It was a horrifirensic
night in Stanford. I was only nine years old when it happened. My dad
was in the garage working on a Mustang convertible. My brother Bobby who
was fifteen years old, my step sister Stephanie who was eight years old,
my step brother John who was fourteen years old and I were all playing
outside. Because my dad locked us out of the house and he had locked the
garage door for some odd reason.
We heard the sirens go off because there was a severe tornado warning
in effect for all of Mclean county and especially around/in Stanford.
My brother and I were banging on the garage door but my dad couldn’t hear
us. We ran up the porch to the front door trying to find a key that my
dad had hidden.
It wasn’t there, so we ran to the back porch to see if he had put the
key, any were around there. We couldn’t find the key anywhere so we ran
to the alley that’s behind our house, because we knew that there is a
ditch on the other side. My brother was old enough to know that if there
is a tornado, and you are outside that you are supposed to get in a ditch
or something that is under the ground some what, since tornadoes can only
travel over a straight area and not a hill or slump.
We got to the ditch; I looked around to see if I could see a tornado.
When I started looking around, at first I couldn’t see anything because
it was raining so hard. After about two or three minutes I saw something
about seven blocks down from where we were sitting, it looked like a strange
cloud at first, but then I knew that it was a tornado.
I told Bobby and he said for everyone to stay in the ditch and to find
something to hold on to. We did as he said and I grabbed on to a pipe
that was sticking up out of the ground. The tornado just kept getting
closer and closer to us. All I could hear is a thunder, blender, ring,
and crashing noise all rolled into one thing. It was so loud that I thought
my ears were going to explode. Then, when I thought I was a goner it stopped.
I looked up and it was gone, but then just when we all thought it was
safe the tornado came crashing down behind us, we looked back and it had
gone a few blocks behind us and split into two tornadoes. As quick as
it reappeared they disappeared and everything got bright, the sun came
out, it stopped raining, and our house, garage or any of are stuff was
damaged. The tornado lasted four and a half-hours.
My dad never even knew what happened until we told him the next morning.
He never locked us out of the house again after that night. To this day
when I am at my dad's house and the sky gets dark he makes everyone go
in the house just in case.
Has anything like this ever happened to you? I hope not.
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