Oklahoma Dreaming: Inside the Storm

by Donna Schoenkopf

last time: first spring

For a week I've been watching the weather channel with a palpitating heart. The "Severe Weather" segment is what is making me sweat. I'm being told again and again to prepare for an intense episode of weather. Every day it comes closer and closer. I am living in dread. I am trying to be calm, but Cold Fear follows me around from room to room like an evil spirit.

Highs and lows have a whole new meaning for me now. A colossal front from the West Coast is getting closer and closer. A huge block of warm, wet air from the Gulf of Mexico is getting up a head of steam. And guess where these two giants meet. In Oklahoma. Right over my head.

I've been in this predicament before. The last three storms threw me into a state of fear that soldiers must get when they are out on patrol and waiting for snipers or IEDs to kill them. I've been in plenty of Oklahoma storms before, but never in a metal house with glass on three walls, on top of a hill, in the middle of nowhere.

D Day.

The day begins, not with the usual brilliant red sunrise through my eastern glass doors but with a heaviness in the air. It's warm and humid and gray. There is a feeling of unease. Nothing moves.

I'm nervous as a cat, so to calm my mind I give myself things to do. I make a mental list of what I'll need when the storm hits. I don't want to be caught defenseless like I was the last time. I think about the concrete floor and how scared I was to walk on it when I read on the Internet that one shouldn't touch concrete because it has metal rods in it. Then I realize that I CAN walk on it because Peewee has grounded it with a 12 foot brass stake had Kendall the Electrician ground the wiring with another metal stake so the house is safe. Thank GOD for Peewee!

But the metal roof worries me. Will Peewee's double screwing of the panels of metal hold under 80 mile an hour winds? Will another lightning bolt hit the roof like last time? Will the glass doors explode with the force of the storm? There is nothing I can do about any of it. I am just going to have to ride it out. Let's see if this house can take it.

That's all I can think about.

The day moves on hour by hour. My friends and neighbors have told me to come over if I get scared. I know I won't. My discomfort about imposing in the middle of the night outweighs my fear of death. (How strange we humans are.)

I watch the weather channel. The swath of red (severe weather color) spreads from southern Texas to Minnesota. Today there'll be thunderstorms across the entire Midwest.

I precook my lunch and dinner so that I won't have to use the electric stove or microwave. I dislocated my left arm a week ago when my stove sent a bolt of electricity through it while I was turning a hamburger over in my iron skillet. Kendall the Electrician's guy fixed it. But I'm still scared of the stove during a thunderstorm. I take the stuff I might want to eat or drink out of the refrigerator. All appliances can be deadly. The Internet warns you not to touch them. I lift the toilet seat so I won't have to sit down on it. The Internet warns you that the metal pipes will carry electricity up to your naked bottom and kill you. I wash all the dishes so I won't have to have my hands in water. I take a shower early so I won't be in the line of fire when the storm hits.

Everything in and around my house is suddenly a threat to my life. Appliances, windows, the floor, the roof, the wiring, the plumbing, the trees outside, the sky.

I check my NOAA weather radio. I have checked and rechecked my alert system today because during the last storm I did something wrong in setting it up and it never alerted me as the storm bore down.

It's good. I did it right this time. I've added all the counties that surround me to the system so I'll know in plenty of time when something happens.

The sun goes down.

I unplug my computer so it won't get fried. I take my phone out of the charger so I won't be electrocuted if I answer the phone when someone calls.

I pace the house and look out all eight of my sliding glass doors ... the ones that will explode if the weather gets too rough. The Internet says thunder can break them, and if the lightning strikes too close to the house, that will crack the glass too.

I watch TV. It's soothing and seems normal and safe. TV is my friend.

Then I change channels and watch the three local stations, which show the Doppler radar pictures—colored masses shifting and changing and moving steadily across the map, traveling from the southwest to the northeast, moving from Dallas toward me. The blobs of color are green and blue and yellow with red, hooked centers which mean tornadoes. The weather man says they are moving at 40 miles an hour. They pass through Ardmore and head toward Asher. They will be here in an hour.

There is no wind. But I see a crack of lightning far off to the south. It's coming. Hold on.

What was an occasional spark, far away, has become regular flashing, strong and much closer. The thunder begins. It's almost upon me. And then ...

The sound is INTENSE. The thunder booms and rolls forever. I time one thunder roll for 26 long seconds, just to get my mind around the duration of them. I worried last time about that sound being the "freight train" that you hear before the tornado hits because I had never heard thunder last that long. Tonight the thunder comes in multiples.

Boooooommmmmmbbooooommmmbbbbboooooommmmmmmmm ...

What scares me is not knowing if it is really thunder or a tornado on the way.

The rain and hail hit the roof. The sound is deafening. I turn my TV up to full volume and still can't hear what they are saying. The wind hitting the house punches and slaps. But nothing creaks. This house is solid.

The night wears on. I don't want to be in my bed. It is too close to the glass. I decide to sleep on one of the twin beds I use for a large guest room area, which has walls I can lie next to. I get my shoes and put them on the floor next to the bed in case I have to run to the gully if a tornado comes. I put my rainproof jacket next to my shoes. My mind goes through panic as I think about running through the rain and lightning to get to the gully in front of the tornado. I put my phone on the bed next to me. I unroll the clown blanket and move the extra pillows off the bed. Rosie the Cat has settled down on the other bed. I turn off the light, even though I fear that, at the very moment my hand touches the switch, I'll be fried. But I'm not fried. I lie on my back, my head propped up on pillows, and pull the clown blanket up around my shoulders. I stare out the windows and watch.

The night is bright with lightning. Most of it is cloud to cloud. The whole sky stays lit as clash after clash explodes into the night. Because I have mostly glass walls, it's as though I am outside in the middle of it all. Every time the lightning flashes, the light enters my house, making it seem like lightning is smashing through my house. There is constant lightning. The longest elapsed time between flashes is six seconds, but that "long" break in the action is rare. Most of the lightning is multiple blasts. Two, three, four, five flashes at once. The night is on fire.

I see three separate cloud to ground lightning strikes out my southern windows. They are fat and jagged and a blue white color that is coldhot fast and deadly. One strikes somewhere near (on?) my pond. The other off to the east in my woods. The other over my southern ridge. Horribly close.

They are death.

Even though I know the house is grounded, I fear the floor. I have to pee. Really bad. I hold it. I am scared to walk through the house past all that glass to get to the bathroom with its metal plumbing to sit on a toilet I'll never get up off of. Finally I lean over and feel for my shoes and put them on and race to the bathroom. I pee, crouching over the bowl. I scurry like a rat back to the bed against the solid, beautiful, safe wall and pull the blanket up.

The NOAA radio goes off ... BEEEEEEEP, BEEEEEEEP, BEEEEEP! screaming its warning. I press the bar to hear the computerized man's voice tell me that the Norman Weather Station reports ... flooding, thunderstorms with chances of tornadoes. He says tornadoes can strike without warning and if you see a tornado get into your storm shelter or closet or a windowless room immediately. Put a mattress over yourself.

I have no storm shelter. I have no closet. I have no windowless room. I will have to run through the rain to the gully, through the lightning and the storm, if I hear that freight train comin', because I sure as hell can't SEE a tornado out here in the middle of the night.

That voice, with its robot-like pronunciations, is my only friend in this terrible night. It's vaguely comforting as it tells me that there is another warning for yet another thunderstorm, and a flood watch, and a tornado possibility coming my way. He's there to let me know what's going on. It's just he and I, here in the house, with death all around. He can't hold me, he can't stop the exploding glass or frying electricity from killing me. But he CAN let me know exactly what's happening.

Warnings come with times ... this alert will expire at 12:45 am ... this alert will expire at 7:00 tomorrow morning. He lets me know that this, too, shall pass, in a voice of calm and reasonableness.

Just hang on.

Then I realize I haven't unplugged my cell phone charger and its cord is lying across the bottom of my bed and the metal tip is touching the floor. Will the lightning find its way through the wiring and into the floor and then into the metal bed frame I'm lying on? I'm too afraid to pull it out of the outlet. My mind goes back to an account of lightning going down someone's chimney, racing through the house shredding all the curtains, breaking EVERY OTHER DISH in a stack of dishes, then finding its way out and leaving devastation. Another account of a woman lying in bed and watching lighting dance around the foot of her metal bed before racing away. Could that cell phone cord be the death of me?

All that preparation and I leave Death's Cord lying across the foot of my bed.

The lightning and thunder continue, with no pause, for HOURS. CONTINUOUS LIGHTNING AND THUNDER FOR HOURS. I lie in my bed, stiff with fear. I watch as the house fills with light from the lightning outside and realize that fucking storm has stalled RIGHT HERE. RIGHT HERE ABOVE MY HOUSE. WILL IT NEVER GO AWAY???

Then I start to talk to the storm. I am humble and gentle in my plea for it to leave. I talk to it as though it's an angry child, or a wild animal, or a raging dimwitted giant. I gently coax it to move on. I sweet talk it. I love it and ask it if it will please move on through the night.

After some time, I don't know how long, I FEEL a kind of lifting. The oppressive weight and energy of the storm have lightened just barely. There is still plenty of thunder and lightning, but it somehow seems less deadly. The flashes are separated by longer periods of quiet. The thunder has died down.

It is 3:56 am. I turn over on my right side, my face to the wall. I pull the blanket over my shoulders. My eyes close.

I sleep.

The next morning, the sun is shining, the birds are singing, the grass is bright green, there's a gentle breeze floating by.

The day has begun.

It's smiling.

Like butter wouldn't melt in its mouth.

next: outdoor shower