TORNADO ALLEY

May 13/10

We left San Angelo on May 11 and drove to Lubbock, Texas (home of Buddy Holly) for one night.  While we were there, we watched the local news and they were having a big memorial for a huge tornado that destroyed most of the city 40 years ago.  That’s when we started checking out Tornado Alley on the web and realized that we were now in it and that tornado season is in full swing.

Our plans were to go to Amarillo and stay for more than a couple of days if we liked the RV park, the weather and the area.  It was a short 2 hour drive to Amarillo the next day to a nice RV park west of town on I-40.  When we checked into the park, the weather was warm and sunny, but they told us that a tornado had formed in a field about 4 miles away a few days ago.  We were also advised that the restroom and shower buildings in the park served as the storm shelters.  It was little disconcerting for fair weather folks like us and I was having visions of our trailer getting sucked up into a tornado like Dorothy’s house in the Wizard of Oz (and me without my ruby slippers).

As the afternoon progressed, the wind picked up and it was really howling by suppertime and then all through the night.  We were watching the local TV channel and they were putting up tornado and severe thunderstorm warnings for about 10 counties east and southeast of Amarillo.  We could see the big thunderclouds in the distance and kept watching to see if they were going to come our way.  The storm didn’t get closer to us but the wind was so strong during the night that we pulled all the slides in so that it was less noisy and we could get some sleep.  What a night!!