The tornado came without any sign——the sky was blue and the sun had been out. My husband Jimmy ran upstairs to find me in our third-floor bedroom. No sooner had we found coverage of the tornado than it was on top of us. The bones of the house shook, and the power went out. The wind began to roar through the house. We had three flights of steps to navigate to get to the relative safety of the first floor. Because the closet down there was installed underneath a brick staircase, it seemed like the most solid place in our house to wait things out.
I didn't know how or if we would make it down the steps. It felt as if there were no floor underneath me as the wind lifted me off my feet. I gripped the handrail (扶手) and tried to move forward, but this intense pressure held me in place. In those seconds of stillness, I could hear everything around me rattling.
As we reached the last flight of steps, our front door blew out. Pieces of glass that looked like broken ice flew everywhere. Suddenly, a three-foot-long tree branch whipped through the door frame. It flew over our heads, missing us by inches. Had we been one step up, it would have gone through us and caused serious injuries. The back wall of the house followed suit and tore off into the darkness outside.
Instantly I reached the closet, Jimmy pushed me (down to the closet floor, but he couldn't get inside himself because of the wind. I gripped Jimmy's arm as the tornado sucked the door open and tried to bring Jimmy with it. My knees were full of glass, but at that moment, I felt no pain. If I had let go, Jimmy would have flown right out and into the bay. "Hold on! Hold on!" he yelled. But there was nothing in this closet to hold on to.
All of a sudden, Jimmy lifted off his feet like people in tornadoes do in the movies. I thought he was gone. And then everything stopped. He landed on his feet. At those first quiet moments, I couldn't believe it was over. Jimmy said he'd go outside to check. "No, "I said. "Don't leave me. "
Our neighbor says the storm lasted four minutes. At that time, four of the twelve houses in our community were completely destroyed. Of the houses left standing, ours suffered the most damage. However, none of us were severely injured.
