Weatherin'

Last night was rough 'round these parts. We had tornadoes hit down here in the city limits of Huntsville not too far from where I live - a couple miles or so. Apparently, it hit worse in Tennessee where at least eleven people died.

Whenever the weather gets rough, I can always count on calls from my sister-in-law. She's a beautiful and neat person, and although she freaks about the weather, at least she's concerned. She was here in 1989 when tornadoes leveled -- and I do mean leveled -- a part of Huntville right where her in-laws were living. I was dating my not-yet-but-one-day-to-be-wife back then, and we came up from Auburn to Huntsville. Man, the damage was like nothing I'd ever seen. Apartments, grocery stores, houses, shopping centers... all wreckage and ruin. I remember helping a little getting fallen oaks out of people's backyards. The damage then was a lot like the picture I attached, which is of Tennessee yesterday, only worse.

A lot of us make fun of the weathermen here, and sometimes rightly so, I suppose. But mostly not so much. I've been guilty of it, I know. The hysteria that comes because we might see a half inch of snow (here in the South where the city just shuts down except for the run on milk and bread in the grocery stores) or the break-ins to television shows (or worse... football games - can you imagine?) to announce we might be seeing some bad weather that never pans out. However, after times like these or in 1989, I see why a lot of folks are so concerned.

There's a lot of people hurting today simply because a couple hours of weather came through their city or town last night. I need to remember that next time I hear a wisecrack about the weathermen (or weather persons, I should say) or the next time my sister-in-law calls at 1:00 a.m. to make sure we're huddled in the bathtub with blankets and flashlights. For the most part, they do it because they care about other people's welfare.

I should be so caring.