Tornado day

March the 1st marked the 9th anniversary of the strongest line of tornadoes to ever hit Arkansas. Unfortunately, Arkadelphia was the first (and one of the hardest hit) areas to receive tragedy that day. I was on duty and in a patrol car that day.

It was at the end of the shift and I was gassing up with our Lt. and another officer. All of a sudden the emergency management officer (who is NEVER on our radio frequency) is not only on our frequency but screaming franticly. I couldn't even make out what he was saying. But dispatch did. The tornado sirens, which we were standing at the base of, turned on and sounded off. Holy shit those things are loud!!

I asked what was going on. "A tornado is coming", "blah, blah blah blah, blah blah". Tornado? I never lived in a tornado zone before so I am wondering, "what do we do?". Then I hear what we're supposed to do. "Spread out, go find it".

Go find it? Go find it and do what? Last I knew they don't stop for blue lights and a siren. What do we do when we find it? I'm thinking go hide and see if it finds me. That sounded much more reasonable but I wasn't in charge. So now I'm recalling the tornadoes I had seen on Discovery Channel... tall, thin, spinning, tearing shit up and throwing it around, pretty obvious, and always clearly seen. So I decide to go south. There is a long straight stretch of highway there surrounded by open fields. I would see it coming for miles. So I go south, down this highway with a deep ditch on either side, and decide to set up on a high culvert over one of the ditches (which are both over flowing with water from the down pour of rain).

I couldn't see shit. The wind was unreal and the rain so hard that super-fast on the wipers wasn't close to fast enough. I see down the road and across the open field a very low, very dark wall of clouds approaching. The closer it got, the stronger the wind. VERY strong. At one point the car is being pushed across the culvert towards the ditch full of water. If I am pushed in I will likely be pinned, upside down, in my car. Like a good cop, I pull my gun ready to shoot my way out of the vehicle if necessary.

The wall of clouds ended up being the tornado. Never saw that on Discovery. It ripped through a portion of town destroying almost everything in it's 1/2 mile wide path. And when it was gone, everything was gone... no wind, no rain, and the sun came out. Eerie in and of itself, but I had to return to town.

I had driven through this part of town almost every day for a year. Hell, I drove through that part of town 20 minutes earlier (which felt like 10 seconds) going to look for the tornado. People that frequently drive certain routes unconsciously learn what to expect. Example; I know what to expect after every curve in the road driving north. After the next curve there's a house on the left, then an open pasture. On the right a bunch of junk piled around a mobile home, then a church, then a few houses, then a plot of pine trees. In this case, driving through downtown, in one half block of the route, I know there are no sidewalks, I can't stop or park, there are two-story buildings on either side, so it is always dark, and I expect to see that before I even make the turn. Everyone does this without even knowing it and you may catch yourself looking twice whenever someone starts a new build or remodel.

Anyway, I return to downtown after the tornado. Well, I try to get back to downtown. Forget the roads, they are covered up with debris and utilities, we are driving through lots that houses used to be at, driving through lawns of wrecked houses and ultimately running on foot to get there.

Everyone that has any sense of help is in a state of shock and urgency. Everything you have gotten used to seeing on a particular corner is gone. Imagine cutting out a section of town; the houses, businesses, trees and plants, utility services, parking lots and cars, street signs, everything.. and put it into a blender with the lid off and hit puree for 3 minutes. It is absolutely unbelievable and cannot be accurately depicted on paper or by photos.

So I get to the area of town most affected and , well after the fact, realize that there are very different personality types. Some people simply cannot handle it, just cry and scream and have no control. Most are very concerned and do whatever it takes to help (thank you all) and the effort was very impressive and very assuring that people have a natural instinct to help. And then you have the thugs. Fucking crackheads and sorry ass people that don't have shit and they are the ones on the run, pilfering and looting, digging around businesses and homes that they assume were vacant. It was a very sorry sight to see. It was like salt in an open wound.

The purpose of this blog site is not just to be funny, it is to recall life experiences and evoke emotion every now and then. I guess the point is that this experience helped me to define what I do for a living and who I am and what I care about. I know it did the same for many "common" citizens. I hope it does the same for you. And if another tornado comes you will likely find me in a bank safe or walk-in cooler at a convenience store. Hey, I want to be around either a lot of money or a lot of junk food and soda.