The TV meteorologist kept saying the tornado would strike the University of Arkansas Medical Center at 2:30 p.m. and Arkansas Children’s Hospital three minutes later. If so, we’d have taken a direct hit sometime in between. I kept watching the radar and telling my wife that the accursed thing would pass us to the north and west. I’ve always been a map guy, and I know that tornadoes track southwest to northeast.
Then I went out on the front porch and heard the SOB roar by. I couldn’t see it for the trees. Missed us by maybe 3 miles, our sons by about 1. Here at the house, our lights never even flickered. What a tornado sounds like, if you’ve never had the experience, is a thunderstorm pulled by a freight train. A strong thunderstorm and a long freight train.
