Tornadoes and freight trains

Tornadoes don’t sound like freight trains.

They sound like a torrential rain starting up. The give-away, though, is the sudden change in air pressure.

The tornado hit the college at about 2:30 on a Friday afternoon, just as I was getting ready to go to a meeting. It took about fifteen seconds to pass over, but I didn’t get my hearing back for at least an hour. We came through it okay by cramming under a desk in the office next door to mine, and the first thing I said after crawling out was, “That wasn’t that bad.” The office was intact except for a few displaced ceiling tiles, and the emergency lights illuminated a fine dust hanging in the air that we thought was candle smoke.

The hallway had a little more damage, but as we walked to the center of the building we could see more ceiling tiles blown, live wires dangling, broken glass from the lights covering the floor, and the odd glow from the dust that was everywhere. At first I thought the building was on fire, but instead of panic just felt a sense of “Oh. That must be what it is.”

The hallways were closed off by the automatic fire doors, and though I could hear voices, it was difficult to do anything more than wander the halls, asking everyone if they were okay. Within a few minutes, we were directed into the break room and under the tables there, because someone had heard that another one was on the way. We sat in the dark, cellphones glowing as we tried to get word out to our families.

Eventually, though I don’t remember exactly how it happened, we gathered together to move to the basement of another building that hadn’t been hit. We walked out, glass and plastic popping under our feet, wires unpredictably hanging down, through what now looked like a hangar space in the middle of our building. The entrances at both ends had gone — one blown away, one blown out.

The parking lot looked as if someone had come along with a broom and swept all the cars to one end of the lot, piling them up for later disposal.

My car went missing. Found it today, though.

Though 90% of me is fine with this — I lived through a tornado, with nothing worse than losing a ratty car that’s worth more totaled than as a trade in — 10% is still in a state of panic. Can’t quite shake it, and images come back to startle me at strange times: at a movie yesterday, playing a video game, seeing a construction site where the trees have been cut down, eating dinner. . .

But I’m letting myself feel this, because it seems a reasonable reaction. It’s only been a couple of days, and between the physical shock of feeling the tornado go through, and the emotional shock of everything being turned upside-down so quickly, this is to be expected.

More pictures: Gallatin newspaper, The Tennessean (Nashville).