I can't sleep right now. The weather outside is pretty bad with constant thunder and lightening. I hate when this happens because if it is at night, I will not sleep. I am not going to lie....it's a fear of tornados...that strike at night. Of course I have a valid reason for this fear. My last year of college I worked in Dillard at First Colony Mall. On Feb. 16, 1998 I was working the 6-9pm shift and it was expected to be busy for the Presidents Day Sales. I remember being upset that I had to go to work and it was raining. As I drove into the mall parking lot the rain turned to hail. I wasn't going to get out my car, after all there wasn't anything I could do...but I needed to get into the building to punch the time clock. I got lucky, or so I thought. The hail stopped so I jumped out of my car, opened my umbrella and headed to the employee entrance. Another employee came running around the corner yelling TORNADO TORNADO!!! I looked up and sure enough there was a tornado and he and I were locked outside the employee entrance (no one was unlocking it from the inside). We starting hitting the door and ringing the door bell over and over again...all at the same time looking over our shoulders to see this tornado tearing up the mall and headed in our direction. FINALLY, someone opened the door just as the tornado was above Dillards. We both ran inside and just a few seconds later the tornado hit the building. You could hear people screaming, things breaking, walls coming down, and water flowing from the ceiling pipes. Thankfully, no one was hurt by the incident, but everyone was shaken up. In an instant the funnel cloud was gone. It was a miracle too because the mall is located next to HWY 59 and at that time it was rush hour and the freeway was at a complete stop from traffic. A lot of people could have been hurt if it would have come down just a few hundred feet away.
So there you have it. Why I can not sleep in a storm. Tornados happen so fast!
Here are some pictures I found from that day. They are from a building a few miles away from the Mall.
The hail....
The tornado in action...with a rainbow
The scary sky afterwards...
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