The Tornado That Never Came

Photo by Nikolas Noonan on Unsplash

I was in 2nd grade at (what felt like a big school) Lincoln Primary School. It was a beautiful sunny day in Leland, North Carolina.

I was in class learning with my other classmates. I don’t even remember what I was learning honestly, but the teacher was teaching & her students were listening (most of them anyway).

And then out of nowhere, the school alarm goes off. All the students have to leave the classroom and head into the hallway with the other students & teachers. I remember hearing the word tornado & immediately freaked out.

‘’A tornado is coming?’’ I thought.

I didn’t want to believe that a tornado was heading towards the school & could possibly destroy it.

Seeing the movie Twister (around the same time) had traumatized me into thinking all tornadoes were like the ones in that film, loud, noisy, and ready to destroy anything that stands in their way. Plus, the image of the father at the beginning of the movie, struggling to hold on to this basement door before getting pulled into a nasty tornado only fueled my fear of tornadoes.

I didn’t want to go out like this. I'm too young!

Getting pulled up into the air and being tossed around in this windy vacuum over and over until I die. If the tornado didn’t…