January 4, 2015. 1:15 AM - Tornado Warning! Go to Safety Immediately. Do you have a severe weather alert on your cell phone? You do. Good. Has it ever alerted in the middle of the night? What did you do? Did you have trouble getting oriented?
Imagine how much worse the disorientation would be if you were 1000 miles from home in a 24-foot motorhome. The alert told us to get to a safe place within 10 minutes. Annie began to get out of her pajamas. "What are you doing?" I asked.
"We are going to the cement block restroom," she said.
"But, I don't want to do that. We'll be fine here. You are just going to get us both wet and cold in the middle of the night."
"Get dressed!" From the tone of her voice I judged she was not to be trifled with. So, we were dressed and out the door in two minutes. There were several couples already in the women's restroom. There were also dogs in the restroom. You probably have never been in a position to make this observation, but old people wear pretty unflattering pajamas. Many of our storm companions didn't bother to change from their bed clothes.
By 2:00 AM, the "all clear" had been given. There was no tornado, just a few heavy drops of rain. As we walked back to T-Harvey, I noted that of the 30-40 RVs we passed, the lights were off, the interiors dark and the occupants likely sound asleep. Annie explained to me that we had just made several new friends and that I should stop bellyaching. The picture above is what you get if you try to take a picture of a tornado in the middle of the night on the Gulf of Mexico.
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