My Family's Story
submitted by Vernon Trollinger
My family heeded the siren's wail as what may have been as many as
three funnel clouds coalesced in the western sky Thursday night around 8:15.
As marble and quarter sized hail pelted our 80-year-old house on Bowery St.,
my kids huddled in the five-foot wide space between two posts supporting the
house's central girder in our basement bathroom.
In short order, the hail stopped. But, then the lights browned and went
black. Slapping on a hard hat, I ducked out back with a flashlight to check our
cars for hail damage. There was none. I came back inside and by flashlight; I
fumbled putting batteries into the weather radio. The first words out of the
speaker when the radio came were that a tornado had been spotted southwest
of Iowa City near Walmart out on Highway 1. We grew quiet, hoping for more
news but local stations were still broadcasting music.
Soon, we could hear a dull roar, even though we were 7 feet below
ground and inside. My wife felt the wall vibrate. Then, gurgling-schlurping
noises came from the sink...
Water was being sucked from the sink trap and pulled some 50 feet out
through the top of my house's soil stack...
Something BIG was passing overhead.
Ignoring the wise ancestral hominid instinct to hide from big, loud
noises, I climbed to the top of the basement stairs, and looked out the back
door. The wind was hellish. Trees were thrashing outside, bending at 60 to 90
degree angles it seemed.
My wife scolded me to return and I had absolutely no argument for her.
After a few minutes, the schlurping, roar, and vibration stopped. I went
up the stairs and again peered outdoors.
I stepped out onto our patio into a world as surreal as one of H.P.
Lovecraft's.
The sky roiled, churning with a horrible, sickening, living fury. Yet, all
was still. In fact, dead still. Lightning flashed inside the tumbling clouds but
there was no thunder--- or its was so muffled I didn't notice. Just dead
stillness. The only other noises were the distant sirens two blocks north on
Burlington St. and some nearby University of Iowa dudes woo-hooing.
The radio reported there were warnings of more Tornadoes on the way, one
northwest of Oxford expected to be in University Heights in a matter of five
minutes. Fortunately, none came. Gradually, news trickled out of our radio
what happened out in the southwest edge of town and then along Riverside
Drive and then through downtown.
At 9:30, by flashlight we got our children to bed, reassuring them that no
more storms lurked in the dark. My wife and I sat down on our front porch to
relax.
But the parade was just starting...
Driven by fear, adrenalin, morbid curiosity, and a bit of booze &
boredom, Bowery St. was shortly choked with cars and throngs of students on
foot heading downtown; the ubiquitous blue cell phone glow lighting their way
along the darkened street. A car raced by, heading east, the driver shouting at
the pedestrians, "Go Hawkeyes! Go Hawkeyes!"
Then a young woman rushed up to the house next door and shouted to a
friend who emerged onto her porch roof wrapped in a towel, "We gotta get
some alcohol! Downtown is destroyed!"
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