by Lindsey Sykes

We really didn’t know how bad it was.

We had been sitting in the hallways of Ridgecrest for an hour. I was in the tiny room by the elevators. My mom called, and told me it was getting bad. I told her I would call her when they let us go upstairs. We were all talking, some people were laughing and goofing off. Then the emergency intercom went off – “There is a tornado ON CAMPUS. Take shelter now!”

I called my dad. He told me it was over Central High School, on 15th street. He said, “I have never seen anything like this in my life.” I still didn’t think it was that bad. How could any innocent, pre-destruction mind imagine what was going on a few miles away? But then the phone dropped the call. Stupid AT&T, I thought.

The power blinked, and we heard someone yell, “Oh my God – get in the halls NOW!” We heard thunder, lightning; no trains, no low-flying planes. Never could I imagine the monster a few streets over, plucking power lines and trees and other things I still don’t want to think about. The sounds passed, and we emerged from our little shelter to see that the main power was out, and the emergency lights were on. That’s when my phone rang.

I suddenly got seven or eight text messages at a time. When I answered, my mom was crying so hard she could hardly speak. Someone showed me a picture of the tornado, taken of a TV screen. That’s when we knew it was bad.