It rained almost all day yesterday. I was enjoying the sound of water on pavement and getting some writing accomplished when I heard the tornado sirens. It was in the sixites, it was light out, no wind, no thunder, just a gentle rain. I immediately assumed the sirens were the monthly test, but realized it was not the first Wednesday of the month and a look at the clock showed that it was not noon, but 2:24 pm.
I turned on the tv to see what was going down and come to find out that there was a tornado, a few blocks from our building that went right into downtown Minneapolis. Non Birding Bill works where it hit, but he works in a basement of a university so was safe all along. The tornado was well past by the time the sirens went off, but someone got a phone photo of it off the freeway near where we live.
Fortunately, no one was seriously injured, but there are quite a few uprooted trees and broken windows. I’ve grew up in Indiana, I know the signs for a tornado and this particular storm really surprised me. It wasn’t green outside, it wasn’t that dark out, no hail, no wind in my neighborhood, and it was relatively cool outside for a tornado. All we had was a gentle rain.
I always wonder how they do the test sirens in other parts of the country. Here, in Oklahoma City, it’s at noon every Saturday. I also always wondered what would happen if there was a tornado at noon on Saturdays. LOL Anyway, I’m glad NBB is ok!
The other thing that throws me is that smaller towns use the sirens to alert the local volunteer firefighters. More than once I have been startled by tornado sirens on a bright sunny day at 1:27 pm and learned later there was a fire nearby.