One month and one day later...

 We got our shelter installed one month and one day before we actually had to USE it.

Since yesterday or the day before, we knew a thunderstorm was going to be happening this evening. It wasn't a big deal at all. In fact, we were going to go have dinner at Cory and Kristen's but changed our minds, not because of inclement weather, but because Blake is feeling a bit icky from having a cold.

Anyway, I decided to make adobo which we ate and enjoyed. After doing dishes, Blake and Liam decided to play some VR while I played around on my computer. Around maybe 7pm, we got random little flashes of lightning, but nothing too crazy. Just before 7:30pm, the power flickered enough to turn off all our electronics. That's sort of weird because all the power lines in our neighborhood are underground and we've not experienced a flicker significant enough to turn off the power before. 

As I waited for my computer to boot up, I got an alert on my phone. TORNADO WARNING. Let me explain: A tornado WATCH means, "Hey. Eventually at some point today, maybe there will be weather that can make a tornado happen. Or not. Who knows? Maybe nothing will come of this." On the flip side, there is a tornado WARNING which is "A tornado is about to form or has already formed and it's been confirmed by a storm spotter or confirmed on radar. TAKE SHELTER NOW."

One of the tornado chasers I follow posted a warning just for us!

Well, my phone said it was the BIG one. A WARNING. But... we never even had a watch issued, so my brain saw WARNING and thought WATCH. I was like, "meh... Okay, maybe I should get the news on." I walked out to the living room where Blake had just opened the back door and was yelling to the neighbor. Our neighbor yelled, "Did you get the warning? We need to take cover!"

Then my brain realized that I had misunderstood what I'd read on my phone. My phone was telling me to get in the shelter. Immediately. We hurried to gather the dogs and got in the shelter. Luckily, we have it set up perfectly. We got the lights on, sat on our 5-gallon buckets filled with supplies, and listened to the emergency weather station on the radio while eagerly searching for up-to-date news on our phones. As soon as we sat down and had the door closed, our phones started blaring. Apparently, the app that had warned me gives the warning fairly gently, but when the iPhone itself got the message of emergency, it blares a sound you cannot ignore. The alert bounced off the walls of the shelter, echoing in the small space.

Hello from our shelter!

We were in the shelter for about 30 minutes. I'm anxious to see what sort of damage there might be. It's hard to know for sure how many tornadoes touched down tonight, but when the sun comes up, the scientists will be able to start their work of evaluating what happened. According to a tornado meteorologist that I follow, one tornado touched down near the Hard Rock Casino and traveled toward the Blue Whale, scattering debris as close as one mile from our house. Guess I'll see come daylight!

I created this log to record the dates and times that we use the shelter.