Home Town Tornadoes

  Home Town Tornadoes 

By: Isabella Sanchez

Sirens scream in the air, the wind races across the sky, citizens grab their tornado kits and hurry to their basement or into their tornado shelters. A tornado is coming.

Tornadoes are a common occurrence in the central region of the United States. An average of about 1,200 tornadoes happen every year in the US, according to the NOAA National Severe Storms Laboratory. There is even a tornado alley, a large plot of land that has the most intense tornadoes in the US. 

Many states have organized tornado drills to prepare citizens for tornado season. For example, when I interviewed Olivia Wright, she mentioned that when she lived in Oklahoma they had tornado drills every Saturday. Olivia explained that, “...at noon there would be a tornado siren to go off for a drill so people would learn what it sounded like and be ready to get into shelter.” 

Olivia shared one such occasion where a tornado came thundering through her hometown of Norman, Oklahoma. “…me and my sister had…two of our blankets and we had all the necessary stuff we needed to survive in those blankets,” she explained.  When she and her sister woke to the tornado siren, they grabbed their blankets and headed to their tornado shelter. However, it was then that Olivia realized she had forgotten to pack her book and rushed back to her room to retrieve it. Luckily, she made it to the shelter before the tornado came, with her book in hand. 

I also interviewed Roxie Troumbley, who lived in Minnesota and experienced several tornadoes at both of her parents’ houses.  Once, a tornado even interrupted her birthday party! “I was at my dad's house and he lived in Minnesota at this time and there was a tornado coming.” Roxie said, “We all hid in the bathroom…I brought all of my birthday gifts with me to play while we were hiding in there and it was just really scary.”

Roxie remembers not knowing what a tornado actually was at the time. “I thought it was a giant crab for some reason,” she explained. 

In a later interview, Roxie said that although most of the tornadoes she experienced were not bad, she remembers trees falling and denting her roof on occasions. She also mentioned that, “A couple houses like a block away would get destroyed a couple times, not every tornado, just some of them.” 

Eventually, tornadoes became such a common occurrence in Roxie’s life that she stopped telling her mom about the tornadoes that she experienced at her dad’s house. Her mom just knew that there was always bound to be one. Roxie admitted, “My mom didn't even know about the one on my birthday.”

Tornadoes affected both Olivia and Roxie, even though they were 996 miles apart. Now, they live far from the destructive tornadoes they once knew.  But they will always remember those times as exhilarating and thrilling. 

“I don't think I will ever forget the experience of being in a tornado especially because of the electrifying sense of danger.” - Olivia Wright