It was a day like any other; the sky was clear and beautiful. I got up made coffee and I turned on the morning news.
“and for the weather here’s Johnnie , well for today we have a beautiful morning with sunshine and a few clouds; hold on one moment folks I’m getting something…”
“ this just in we have a major catastrophic event happening really soon .. this is very serious and everyone needs to take shelter and try to get somewhere high off the ground. we will have more information in just a few minutes so stay tuned .”
I go and wake up my family and tell them what is going on.
First I wake up my husband Samuel .
“ honey wake up , it’s really important.” I say to Sam. “ honey please” I replied once more.
“ yes honey I’m up. I’m up.” Sam replied.
“ meet me in the kitchen I have coffee ready im going to wake up the kids” I told Samuel.
“ honey what is this about?” Sam asked
“ I think we have to go somewhere safe I was just watching the news and they said for us to get to high ground and get off the streets.” “they are giving us updates so we must go and listen” I told Sam.
I go wake up my kids feed them breakfast when the news comes back on.
“ here’s an update on our catastrophic event; we don’t no exactly the extent of the situation but we were told to be on alert at all times, and it is definitely a storm of sort but they do not give details just that it’s really severe and massive. please folks stay indoors. All we can do is wait and be ready. This is said to start around 12am in the morning. So please be aware and be safe”
I tell Samuel that this is serious and we need to get stuff ready for our kids to be safe.
Samuel says “ we have that storm cellar outside we can go in it and bring food and drinks and we can sleep in there until this is over. we need flashlights and candles and our batteries.”
“ Ok honey” “ I’ll get the batteries and food for us and you can get the rest.”
“Samuel I’m scared” I say to Samuel
“We are going to be ok honey I promise let’s do this and get to that cellar.” Samuel replied.
Several hours later it’s about 11:30 pm . My kids are fast asleep ; my husband and I are up listening to our emergency radio.
“any minute now” Samuel said
“remember no matter what we will be ok” he replied with a strong but gentle voice.
then all of the sudden 12:00 hits . we hear nothing, then 12:01, 12:02 still nothing.
Me and Sam decides to stay in the cellar till the next morning.
“ honey go lay down with the girls you need to rest I’ll stay up just in case.”
“I don’t want to go lay down I’m too worried.”I replied
“honey I won’t let anything hurt us just trust me.” Samuel replied
“ okay” so I did
As I laid there an hour passes and nothing happens. By this time it’s already 2:00am. I started to doze off and as soon as I did nothing but loud bangs and crackling noises. There were loud sounds like a cannon going off. We heard what sounded like trees falling. It was terrifying.
We gather up our family and wait.
a few hours go by and everything got silent.
After being silent for a couple hours my husband decides he wants to check it out to see if it’s safe .
“I’m going to go take a look outside to see if it’s safe I’ll be back you three stay here till I come back!” Said Samuel
“ It may not be safe Sam ! please wait.” I told Sam
“For what?” “it’s been silent for a couple hours I have to check.” “it’s going to be ok” replied Samuel
“hurry back and please be careful!” I told Samuel.
“ if it’s safe I will let you know ok until then stay here I will be back”
A few minutes go by.
“ Liv!” “come see”yelled Samuel
I walk out of the cellar and I’m in shock.
“ Everything is gone!” I cried
“absolutely everything!”
Sirens in the distance from ambulances to fire trucks, the national guard were everywhere.
Trees fallen on top of houses and cars,
power poles were ripped out of the ground.
Homes were destroyed most of them were completely gone. There were even large cracks in the road.
After looking around I spot a national guard and asked what this was.
“ sir can you tell me exactly what this was and why was we warned only hours before it happened?” I asked
“ well mam we had a few weather catastrophes in one.” said the national guard
“ a few weather catastrophes ?” I replied in confusion
“ yes mam think of it like this a few tornadoes, major lightning, a small earth quake and a hurricane in one major storm, it came up on the radar just enough time to warn everyone to evacuate and seek cover.”replied the national guard
“ it’s all over now mam. Now we can try to recover what was lost and move forward.”
“ Thanks Sir I appreciate you telling us this.” I replied “thank you”
As I walked away I look at our beautiful home that we built together.
All gone, but we are all safe and that’s the important thing. Now we must rebuild our city and make new memories.
to be continued………




© RoseJenkins