Dear God, I haven’t been this scared in years…and it takes a lot to scare me. Such a horrible evening. I knew we were in deep trouble when they said Reed Timmer (a well known tornado hunter) was following the storm.
At 5:30pm I had cleaned out the downstairs closet, put Whirl in her carrier in the back when the sirens started. The weatherman said the tornado was headed straight for Maumelle after it had formed. We scrunched into the closet, Tom wrapped a rope around the door handle and then himself.
We listened as the local news kept saying it was coming our way and we are in the northwest section of Maumelle , the direct path.
Then the lights went out. I braced myself and prayed that I wouldn’t start feeling the air being sucked out of the closet.
Everything was eerily still…. And green.
The tornado turned to the northwest, away from us.
The photo below was taken by a young boy as the tornado passed about 5 miles west of us and headed for Mayflower.
As I write this it’s going on 5am here, still thundering and very humid outside. I think I can safely go to bed soon. I told Tom tonight that I couldn’t take this anymore and I’m going to install a tornado shelter… No matter what it costs.
Our son, Richard, just moved to Jackson, Mississippi this past week and started a new job at the U of M Medical Centre there. He’s getting one hell of an initiation into weather in the deep south.
I’m going to bite the head off my chocolate Easter bunny now.
Much love as always,
Meg
Meg Davis Music and Arts 
Well sure, I’m glad that I DO remember you and Mary (my memory has become very add about past happenings). While you were going through the tornadoes in ’74 I was in Cyprus. I’d gone down to Nicosia to shop for a lambskin vest when I walked by a shop with tvs in the window and they were all tined to the same channel. A crowd gathered to wonder at the pictures of a huge tornado plowing through a city…and me… i ‘m looking at this and my brain said..”That’s the Carew Tower !”
I got rather upset at that point and some lovely people in the crowd took me back to their shop where I could put a call through to Cincy and sip Greek coffee while I waited. Of course, with the emergency going on, my call didn’t get through to my folks until that evening.
I’ll never forget that sunbaked day, looking at my hometown under attack from that massive tornado and being so far away. I’m forever grateful to the kind people there who watched over me while I waited to hear if people back home were allright.
I went through a lot of Greek coffee that day…
Were you and your people ok ? What part of town were you in that day in ’74 ?
Meg
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Anyone who has ever seen a tornado will forever recognize that Green Bruised Color of the sky. There were three in the area of Cincinnati in 1974 when I was only 9 and ever after I could point out tornado clouds.
You may not remember me, Karen, and my sister, Mary, who lived in Cincinnati and met you at the concert with Garnet Rogers (when he was running a fever of 104)(back in 1991?). I’m actually converting my tapes of you onto MP3 and WAV files since my tape player died.
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Glad you’re safe Meg! 🙂
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That is very scary. Stay safe.
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