Tornado Alley
Wow…what a day. It’s been almost eight years since a tornado killed a Vanderbilt student here in Nashville and left a trail of damage, particularly in historic East Nashville. I was working at Vanderbilt University at the time. My office was being renovated so I was in a temporary building seven stories up with a direct view of the downtown skyline. I was going to walk to the campus bookstore that afternoon, but changed my mind when I looked out at the ominous clouds. I remember seeing debris flying in the air and the next minute our receptionist coming in and saying somewhat frantically, “Guys, there’s a tornado…get in the stairwell. It’s here.” The hubby was west of downtown and saw the odd green color in the sky and heard the warnings and headed toward campus to make sure I was OK as the phone system was haywire for a while. So far there are 11 confirmed deaths from today’s tornadoes here Tennessee; the majority of fatalities were in Sumner County, which is north of Nashville. We are under a tornado watch until 4 a.m. Of course, the weather and storm damage dominated the local news and Caitlin couldn’t understand why mama wanted to watch the weather and she couldn’t watch Dora. Our tornado plan? Get in the bathtub and put the crib mattress over us. The hubby even shut down his shop around 4 as well as the servers. (He has a computer services business.)
Here’s a screen shot from our TV this afternoon. I’ve lived here my entire life and never heard of these towns, but they do fit the Southern stereotypical small town names, don’t they?
