I told a Midwestern friend, recently, that there has only been one night since we moved into our current home that severe weather really made me nervous.
Yesterday was the three-year anniversary of that event.
The Hail Storm of April 27, 2011 was really a life-changing event around this town. The storms were so powerful; the hail-fueled battering of homes so relentless that much of that summer – indeed the rest of that year – found Knoxville home to an army of insurance adjusters, roofing contractors and car rental facilities.
I’m sure the local economy got quite a boost from the months and months of repair work. Car rental shops had to order inventory from other towns. Hotels and motels were filled with legions of work crews. Local restaurants did booming business.
That’s the good news.; the bad news started in the afternoon of April 27.
The national storm prediction center painted a bulls-eye on East TN as all of elements for a severe weather outbreak converged on the metro area. The forecast was so dire that scores of people left work early to make sure they were home before evening rush hour clogged major traffic arteries.
I was home – and we tuned to the local weather forecast – and began tracking the storms by 5 p.m.
Early in the evening, we heard the first ‘take cover immediately’ request. Indeed, when I heard local meteorologists say “If you live in Farragut, along…” and he named near-by streets, I got serious.
For years, Lisa and I agreed the area at the bottom of the stairs going into our basement would be our safe shelter if we ever encountered severe weather. That night, we took the entire family down to that spot. Even Roger the Cat came with us.
He seemed mildly curious about us huddling under a large quilt. Soon, he wanted to go into the garage but as the storm hit – with hail pounding the garage door – he came scurrying back inside.
The tornado, associated with that hail, traveled from west to east about five miles south of our home. Lisa swears she heard the train-like sound. I can’t say that I did.
Within a few minutes, the hail pounding stopped and we got the all-clear. We returned to the basement a couple hours later when we got a similar warning.
Holly, then a student on the UT campus, called to check in on us when she saw one of the local tv stations featuring a photo someone took of a snow shovel full of hail that did, indeed, resemble the wintery white stuff.
That photo was submitted by someone who lived a few miles west of us. Still, it was close enough to get her attention. We assured her that we were fine.
Roger, unfortunately, was not fine. Our previously-fearless feline was unnerved by storm. To this day, he retreats to the basement if a thunderstorm approaches. Last night, for example, he begged to go downstairs.
That night, fortunately, we were just the recipients of hail damage. Eventually, we re-painted the home and re-roofed the house. We lost a tremendous percentage of green leaves that night. The trade-off was we did much less raking that fall.
We definitely dodged a bullet in late April 2011. Still as we enter the last week of April 2014, with the season’s first real batch of severe weather brewing out in Arkansas and heading this way, our antenna is up. Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia are under the gun tonight.
East Tennessee is not usually the recipient of nasty spring weather but it can happen. We’ll all want to make sure to know our safety plans and have our weather radios plugged in when we go to bed tonight.
JG
Originally posted 4/28/2014
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