Storms & Shelter

Maybe I've mentioned that in Oklahoma, they don't build houses with basements...  and there are surprisingly few that have storm shelters. The one we bought does have one that was installed after the initial construction.  It's in the garage floor and isn't all the big, but we can fit quite a few people in there. ha.

We spent some time in the spring cleaning it out and clearing the spiders and webs out.

The boys think it's basically a fort. 

Which it good, because only a day or two after we cleaned it out, there was a tornado warning and we all had to climb down in there for a while!

We basically spent thirty minutes in there trying to get internet and cell service to see if we were clear to get out.  Once we closed the metal lid, we had neither.  Time to get a weather radio, I guess!

Though that storm/tornado was headed our way, it broke up before it did any damage to our area.

We ended up down in there again the night of the last day of school.  And the next day.  And the next.

We were getting used to this and the horrible alert sound our phones make when there is a warning.

By the third night, we had it figured out and ran an extension cord in there so the boys could take their tablets.

But this was also the night Derek got bored and got his drone out to see for himself.

We knew the storm was just to our West, so he wanted to get up there and see behind the house. 

We couldn't see much, even from the drone, but it was a pretty view.

That weekend, Derek had taken his entire truck apart to fix the air conditioner vent switcher something or other.  Yes, literally took the cab apart, seats out, dash and all.

And around 1am, while he was still working, the sirens went off!  This was unexpected and when we turned the TV on to see what was happening, we could tell it was headed our way. We waited until it was near enough to be dangerous, then woke the boys up and got them to the shelter.  I don't think they really woke up though, they were so confused and had trouble just finding flip flops and walking in the right direction. 

Derek said later, "That was the most legit shelter run we've had this week.". ha  And we'd had some!  We could actually hear the wind so loud this time, it was a bit frightening.  When it was all clear, we checked the tv again and saw that the rotation of the tornado had been pretty close to us. Thankfully, we had no damage, though a neighbor around the corner had a tree down on top of their truck.  There was a lot of small debris in around the city, but nothing too serious. 

A lot of our neighbors have to duck into closets and bathtubs during these storms.  We've told anyone who would need to that they can always come jump into our shelter...   we're thankful to have it!