Twister threat left time to reflect

You kick a few things around in your head as you hunker down in the hallway of your home, wondering if a tornado is going to come whirling out of the dark, rainy night and slam into your house.

That’s the way it was last Friday night, The Night of the Tornado.

For us that night was probably like many other folks’ around town:

Watching TV, the weather guy comes on and says a twister is headed for Clovis and then the eerie, spooky wail of tornado warning sirens in the night.

We did what the experts said, sat in the middle of the house in the hallway. The family dog and the cats came walking up, eyeing us warily. You could almost hear them say, “What’s up? Y’all don’t usually sit here.”

We sat there as sirens wailed, hailstones smacked the roof and wind rattled the windows. It’s moments like this that you ponder the “what ifs” of life.

I thought about the tornado hitting the house, yanking the roof off. I imagined all of our stuff being sucked up into the sky and scattered across the High Plains.

I didn’t really think about dying. I just figured there’d be this bad wind that would blow our stuff away. That didn’t bother me so much. Stuff is just stuff; clothes, dishes, music, books, those little things that make your home your home.

I’ve lost truckloads of stuff in my life. I’ve learned that stuff I really liked always seemed to come back to me one way or another. And yet, I’ve learned there are things that are irreplaceable, that I miss when they’re lost or stolen, like those pictures of the kids, the family, the things I’ve done and the places I’ve been.

I thought how tiring it would be to have to clean up your life after it’s been blown apart by a twister.

“If it destroys the house we could finally build that neat two-story house I’ve always wanted,” I said. I was talking about these little houses that are like 14 feet wide and two stories tall. They have about the same square-footage as a regular house, but they don’t take up as much space on a lot. “Then we could have a bigger garden.”

“Or we could sell the lot and move to Florida,” said The Lady of the House.

“Hurricanes,” I said.

“It’s always something,” she said.

I patted her hand and held it. A calm feeling came over me.

Whether a twister would slam into our house or not remained to be seen. But as long as we were together we’d be OK.

Soon the hail stopped, the winds subsided and all was clear.

I opened the front door and looked at the river of water coursing down the street. The air was crisp, wet and cool. I wondered what was out there and what had happened to our town.

The next morning we came to know of the destruction, to know that it would be called the worst tornado in Clovis’ history, surpassing the destruction of 1944.

You know a number of our fellow townsfolk lost a lot that night. I know our thoughts and prayers are going to them. I know we wish them a quick return to normal days. And we can hope it’ll be more than 60 years before something like this visits our town again.

Grant McGee hosts the weekday morning show on KTQM-FM in Clovis. Contact him at:

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