TWISTER

It had been raining almost everyday for a week. Non-stop. Last Thursday, I stared in disbelief at the message on the tv screen : Tornado warning for Chicago area. What, a tornado in Chicago ? You've GOT to be kidding . So I switched over to the weather channel and sure enough it was sighted near the Eisenhower expressway !

Suddenly the sky grew very dark and 80 mph winds whipped the trees nearly to the ground. An eerie feeling came over me as scenes from my childhood flashed through my mind : Twister. How many countless hours had I spent underground in a storm cellar waiting for one to pass over ? I sometimes feel that I spent so much time in a hole I could be a mole.

I am terrified of severe thunderstorms, lightning and tornadoes because I've seen the damage they have done. Neighbors homes totally destroyed, barns ripped off their foundations and sent through the air to the next county, huge trees uprooted and dead chickens everywhere.

My first thoughts were to go to the lower level for protection but almost as soon as the announcement was made, the storm subsided. Then came the tv coverage of 300,000 chicagoans out of electricity, huge trees felled everywhere, roof collapses and homes flooded in the suburban areas.

Was it really a twister or just a funnel cloud ? No one seems to know. One thing's for sure : It was a hell of a storm. We were lucky in our neighborhood but not far away in Lincoln Park it looked like a war zone. The weather this August has really been one for the record books.