Tornadoes and Dothan


So my very first tornado warning in Dothan occurred sometime after the hurricane last semester. It was in the middle of the night about 1:30 in the morning or something like that. I was sound asleep. I knew that it was supposed to storm that night, but I don't remember if the storms were supposed to be severe or not. Anyways, I was asleep, sleeping like the dead. All of a sudden, I heard this unearthly screeching. I sat up in bed, frantically trying to figure out what was going on. My phone was the thing making the noise, so I rubbed my eyes and tried to read what was on the screen. All I remember was that it said tornado warning.

I jumped out of bed and grabbed Winry before running into the living room to turn on the TV. The poor lizard had been sleeping soundly when I snatched him up. And yes, I do know that you are probably supposed to take cover and not stand in the middle of a room full of windows. So I have the TV on and am watching the news, trying to figure out if I should wake up my roommate or not. She was still sleeping through all of my racket.

In order to understand my full experience in this situation, please know that I am used to big city reporting, or big city as I know it. In Birmingham, we have James Spann and other meteorologists. They will flat out tell you if it's bad or not. The guys and gals in Dothan were just kinda like well it could be a tornado or not. We really don't know. (Sadly, I am not really making that up, just summarizing.)  So, after many minutes of panic and freaking out, I finally figured out that the supposed tornado, if it was a thing, was going to pass well above my apartment building. (It was a chore trying to figure out where on the circle that I was at the moment since I still didn't know the map of Dothan really well at that time.) I went back to bed and put Winry back in his aquarium.

I was reminded of that story due to the strong storms that came through Dothan and the Wiregrass yesterday. We had a couple tornado warnings, but I know folks closer to Auburn and Smith Station were hit hard. So please, please keep Lee County in your prayers and thoughts. And if you are able, please consider donating to help those affected.


And here is Winry as my weather lizard yesterday. 



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