I grew up in Walker County, Alabama.
It's a coal mining community.
It's hilly and full of pines.
It's tornado alley.
Literally.
Growing up, we had two sets of drills: fire drills and tornado drills. Heaven forbid you get the three short and one long bell mixed up and go outside thinking it's a fire drill when it's really a REAL tornado drill. Your principal will turn fire engine red in the face screaming at your class while flapping his arms like a windmill. Seriously.
In case you didn't know it, they claim "tornado season" is the spring and fall. Though Walker Countians know a tornado can came any time the weather is funky, as it is prone to be in the south.
So imagine my surprise to come home to TWO messages on the answering machine. Imagine my even bigger surprise to discover they were from my first grade niece. The sirens are going off, and the weather man said that the first round of the storm was in North Carolina. Silly Aunt Monica doesn't know to turn her radio or tv on (dare I tell her we don't have special sirens at the fire stations for tornadoes?), so she needs a warning call.
Tornadoes aren't fun.
But chatting with a concerned 5 1/2 year old who knows everything is.
I love being an aunt!
It's a coal mining community.
It's hilly and full of pines.
It's tornado alley.
Literally.
Growing up, we had two sets of drills: fire drills and tornado drills. Heaven forbid you get the three short and one long bell mixed up and go outside thinking it's a fire drill when it's really a REAL tornado drill. Your principal will turn fire engine red in the face screaming at your class while flapping his arms like a windmill. Seriously.
In case you didn't know it, they claim "tornado season" is the spring and fall. Though Walker Countians know a tornado can came any time the weather is funky, as it is prone to be in the south.
So imagine my surprise to come home to TWO messages on the answering machine. Imagine my even bigger surprise to discover they were from my first grade niece. The sirens are going off, and the weather man said that the first round of the storm was in North Carolina. Silly Aunt Monica doesn't know to turn her radio or tv on (dare I tell her we don't have special sirens at the fire stations for tornadoes?), so she needs a warning call.
Tornadoes aren't fun.
But chatting with a concerned 5 1/2 year old who knows everything is.
I love being an aunt!
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