Wacky prison weather, part 3

Hello dear readers, and happy almost Thanksgiving!  This blog took me a while to write because it was so stressful, but I have finally processed it and can laugh at it now.

The past two summers have been insane in terms of weather that is not normal for this part of the country.  Tornadoes in Tornado Alley?  OK, fine.  Tornadoes in a place that never has tornadoes?  NOT OK.

To set the scene:

Mintern and I were alone in the library office, the patrons and clerks having returned to their units for the 4 o'clock count.  I, in my fancy new office fashioned from a hand-me-down cubicle wall with door and window, was looking at the emerald green clouds swirling over the greenbelt while Mintern slaved away at her never-ending stack of interlibrary loan requests.  The clouds started moving in a counter-clockwise circle reminiscent of the last time we had a funnel cloud directly outside the library.  This summer was different though, because we now have a video camera thanks to our Read to the Children program!

I grabbed the camera and began recording.  (Because I ended up making a video but I included identifying information that can't be edited out on my phone, I am not going to post it, but instead I will post a transcript so you can see what was going on.)

Opening credits slowly appear on a black screen...Birth of a Tornado....
Me: "Alright, I'm videotaping it.  We'll put it on a DVD...show everyone the birth of the tornado!"
Me: *watches in awed silence for a few seconds*
Me: "Yeah those are definitely moving around in a circle."
Mintern: "Yeah they are!"
Me: "I wonder if we should call Master Control?"
Mintern: "Did you check the weather?"
Me: "I checked the news, and it just said flood warning."
Mintern: "That is super creepy!"
Me: "Yeah."
Me: "Maybe we should call S_____." (our boss)
Mintern: "S______!" (haha)
Me: "Maybe I should call my HB."
Me: *hands the camera to Mintern*
Me, in the background on the phone with my HB who has a degree in meterology: "Yeah the two times I have been here they have not done the tornado siren though...Ok you're saying we should probably get in the closet...well I can't drive, you can't drive in a tornado!...Well it's right outside the library...Ok thank you for the weather update..."

The video ends then, because I decided that I would go against HB's advice and make a run for it and try to get home before the tornado hit.  I told Mintern to get in the closet if it got worse and I headed towards the lobby.  As I was leaving, the Shift Commander and some of the yard staff were admiring the unusual atmospheric conditions from the ground but nobody seemed overly concerned.  I made it to the lobby just as the tornado sirens started blaring but I told the lobby officer I was going to make a run for it and to wish me luck...

Now, dear readers, hindsight is 20/20.  What happened next was the most stupidest thing I could have EVER done.  I got in my Jeep and started driving home, which, as luck would have it, was right towards the center of the tornado.

I got, maybe 300 yards away from the prison when the hail started.  All of a sudden, the air around me was slate grey and thick with rain pounding my Jeep sideways.  I pulled over because I realized it wasn't smart to be driving and started surveying my options.  Conditions got worse and worse, and it sounded like the hail was going to break the glass in the windows any minute.  The wind was howling, and I felt my Jeep rock a little bit.  Cars kept driving past me and I was thinking, ARE YOU GUYS CRAZY!! THE TORNADO IS RIGHT THERE!!!!"  (I found out later that the tornado did, in fact, touch down 1/4 mile from where I was...YIKES!!!)

Finally, I couldn't take it anymore and I knew I had to get out of there.  I didn't care that it was a one way street, every instinct in my body was telling me to MOVE.  I threw the Jeep in drive and made a U-turn.  Luckily, nobody was coming at that moment.  I drove the wrong way down the one way street, praying that nobody would hit me and hoping that anyone seeing me scared enough to flee like that would have second thoughts about driving into the raging fury that lay ahead.  I dodged one car by mere inches and then I was back on the two lane road, headed towards my safe haven of prison.

I pulled in the parking lot pursued by pelting rain and driving hail the size of golf balls.  One hit me in the ear as I ran towards the lobby.  Seeing me coming, the staff who were smart enough to stay inside opened the door and ushered me to safety.  Outside, the storm lasted for what seemed like hours, but 30 minutes later the wind died down and the sky cleared up.  I called Mintern to check on her, and she said HB had called and she told him I left and he was extremely worried.  I never take my cell phone to work because I don't want to fry its little phone brain in the hot car, so Mintern called HB and patched him through to the lobby so I could let him know I was ok.

When I left work, the road I normally take looked like Armageddon had hit.  The bridge over the stream was flooded (I forged on through, because Jeep, but don't you do that dear readers.  Aside from driving right into the tornado, driving through a flood is the second worst thing you can do) and giant tree branches were littering the road.  The street was a green carpet of leaves and you could not even see the asphalt.  All the shutters on the houses looked like someone had thrown baseballs at them and some of the siding looked the same.  I finally made it home safely, and I definitely learned a lesson because I have never been so scared in my entire life.

But, all's well that ends well and what doesn't kill makes you stronger, and I will never scoff at the forces of nature again.

Until next time!

Wacky Prison Weather Part 2

So after a lengthy discussion today, Min-tern and I have decided that she has brought the wrath of the weather upon us because yesterday was the second tornado I have seen in my life ALL IN THE SAME SUMMER.

As I was leaving work yesterday, I looked to the north and saw some completely normal looking rain clouds and the a very weird brown line of rain raining down. I also noticed that the rain was raining so hard it was kicking dirt up around it. "Hm. That's weird. It must be raining really hard over there," I thought and hurried on my way to master control to avoid the rain.  As I was leaving the lobby I jokingly told the lobby officer "Have a good night! Stay dry and watch for tornadoes!" to which he laughed and said ok.

Well little did I know, that weird brown rain was ACTUALLY A TORNADO. The person whose job it is to sound the tornado alarm had an epic fail yesterday because I could CLEARLY see the storm, but was not alarmed because there was no alarm.  I only discovered how close I was to an untimely demise when I got home and turned on the news while I was eating dinner.

So now in my life I have seen two tornadoes from prison. What are the odds? Until next time, stay safe and watch the skies!

Wacky prison weather

Generally our prison doesn't have wacky weather but today was definitely an exception. I was sitting at my desk, happily recataloging CDs and enjoying the fact that my afternoon meeting was cancelled when I looked out the window and noticed it getting dark--FAST.

Now I am generally a weather exaggerator because things are more dramatic and hilarious that way. However, today no exaggeration was needed. The dichotomy of blue sky to the left and black clouds to the right was meterologocally beautiful. After the tornado green was thrown in, it was a sky to rival the sunrises from my deck.

I called my HB because he is in the know about things like that and I figured if I was going to get blown to another state I could at least say Loveyoubye. Then I called the Teacher 2 and said "Hey! Come on down and watch this crazy weather with me!" because tornadoes are always more fun with friends. By the time she got there the convective energy was really starting to build and we watched, mesmerized, as the clouds swirled faster and faster.

We were gaping out the window when we heard the sirens go off and a voice came over the radio and said "Everyone get AWAY from the windows!" because I guess we were not the only ones looking haha.  We decided to go out and see what everyone else was doing and round people up to get them to safety.

One of my colleagues called Control and they said to get everyone away from the glass and take shelter, so because the bathrooms were full I took another teacher and her class to my storage closet which has no windows, just huge heavy shelving units and thousands of books. But I figured hey, if we were going to die, at least we would die surrounded by great literature.

Now, one thing to know about prison library patrons, especially women, is that many of them have PTSD. Things like this freak them out big time. The group with me was pretty calm, even though one girl asked in all seriousness if we were going to die. To maintain the peace, and because I didn't feel like we were going to die, I told her "Nope. No dying today" and she was mollified.

When all the craziness of torrential rain, wind and hail passed, I called Control to ask if it was safe to come out now. "Come out of where?" they asked. "Um, SHELTER..." I replied. "Nobody went into shelter," they told me. "EVERYONE was in shelter up here," I informed her. Classic case of one hand not knowing what the other is doing apparently.

Times like this make me wish we had a camera because the clouds were amazing and the amount of hail afterwards looked like a snow storm had hit. We were instructed to send everyone back (escorted...unescorted....depended on whom you asked haha) and then return to whatever it was we were doing before almost-mageddon.

Let this be a lesson though, potential prison librarians. Become familiar with emergency procedures and evacuation routes and shelters because you never know when you will have to take charge in an emergency because other people are running around like chickens with their heads cut off. Until next time!