SIMPLE TIMES B Y S U Z Y M c C R AY
The Underrated Killer
THE CO-OP PANTRY “I’ve been in hurricanes, hailstorms, a blizzard and tornadoes, even spotted some tornadoes in the Great Plains, but nothing in the world of weather scares me more than lightning,” explained Wes Wyatt, a meteorologist with WBRC Fox 6 weather for the past decade. And after what happened here on the farm about a month ago, I tend to agree! Most of us reading this magazine live in the South. We’ve grown up scared of tornadoes and knowing we should seek immediate cover when a weather watch changes to the more serious tornado warning. But how many of us really take it seriously when thunderstorm warnings are issued, and how many of us have stayed in the fields, in the garden or on the tractor trying to get just a little bit more finished even though the darkened skies were rumbling with thunder? I was walking toward the side door of our brick home, coming from the tiny general store on our farm, about 9 a.m. The grass remained wet from a steady drizzle that had dampened our spirits but enlivened our garden throughout the night. I was wearing my usual outfit of jeans and a tee shirt, socks and a $5 pair of canvas tennis shoes from the local big box store.
As I approached about 15 feet from the door, suddenly fire crackled out from the internet and old cable and old phone lines still attached to a box beside the door. At the same instant the fire shot out, I was shocked up both legs from my feet to my hips just as a huge boom of thunder shook the neighborhood so violently that a neighbor on the “back road” was so frightened she called her husband at work. Husband Mack was next door picking up daughter, Jannea, for an errand and the boom shook his big Dodge truck violently. I entered our house QUICKLY! Once I calmed down my breathing seemed OK and I didn’t seem any worse for wear – but you can bet there were (and are) several prayers of thankfulness that went up from the same direction that lightning had come down! Only days later did we find the extent of the several hundreds of dollars of damages to things in our home. But that damage really seemed minimal when we kept remembering “what could have been …. ” During my nearly 35 years as a reporter, some lightning strikes remain always in my mind and heart. There was the sweet toddler, playing innocently while his parents picked vegetables in a friend’s garden, only to lose his life quickly when lightning struck from August 2020
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