In spring, it just doesn't just rain in Georgia - it storms. And I don't mean your basic garden variety of thunderstorms, either; I mean the kind that Jim Cantore of The Weather Channel cautions us about.
Note: I adore Jim Cantore. The voice, the science, the swagger - whoa, Nellie. Thank goodness that The Weather Channel (TWC) is located on the north side of the perimeter surrounding Atlanta and I am on the south side, because if I ever just casually bumped into Jim at my local Publix grocery store, I just know that I would be stupid.
Anyway, back to my story. Yesterday's forecast was for severe thunderstorms in the evening hours, so I was already on edge. With a gazillion tall pine trees surrounding our house, severe thunderstorms and the usual accompanying strong winds scare the bejeebers out of me. After dinner, I turned on TWC to see what was going on and there it was: a strong cell just across the state line in Alabama, due west of Hooter County.
Dr. Greg Forbes of TWC, for whom I have no groupie-like fondness and frankly, reminds me of some strange kind of homely insect, said it was a severe storm and would impact the south side of Atlanta in about an hour and a half. Holy moly, that is all I needed to hear.
We had Aidan get an early bath and as we were getting him out of the tub, we heard thunder. As we checked TWC for the latest info, the Emergency Broadcasting System broke in and notified us that a Tornado Warning had been issued for Hooter County. Moments later, we heard the warning sirens sound. That was all we needed; we grabbed Aidan, mobile telephones and my laptop, and headed for the basement.
Note: Spenser the Cat was nowhere to be found. At the first sound of thumder, he found a place to hide and those of you with cats know that if a cat wants to hide, there is no finding them. And there was no finding Spenser at 7:25 pm last evening.
With a young child in the house, it is a very fine line between being cautious and prudent, and causing undue distress for the child. We usually try to downplay bad news or threats of severa weather, but last night Aidan needed to know that the danger was real and that we needed to act accordingly to stay safe.
So there we sat in the basement/garage for about 45 minutes as the storm cell passed overhead. We were not able to hear much except the rain pounding against the two windows. I was able to monitor the storm both on TWC radar and by watching 11Alive.com, which had broken into regular programming to monitor the weather situation, although 11Alive was far more concerned with the weather's impact on the Braves' home opener than it was with the tornado threat in Hooter County.
At last the cell passed and we went back upstairs. Another slightly weaker cell soon passed through and we kept Aidan awake and out of bed for that one, but we did not retreat to the basement. He finally got to bed around 9 pm, a little over an hour past his regular bedtime, and I kept an eye on the weather the rest of the evening. Another smaller storm came through just as we went to bed around 10:30, but it apparently did not bother me much since I fell asleep almost immediately.
We awoke to a clear, fresh, green morning, with no apparent damage in our neighborhood or our corner of Hooterville. I just wish that rain in Georgia was just plain ol' rain, without the fireworks and drama.
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