Once upon a thunderstorm

Whenever people find out that we are not from the US, one of the first questions is;

“How’s the weather over in the Netherlands” or “what is the difference between the weather here in Indiana and the weather in Holland?”

My answer is pretty much always the same. “It is a bit warmer in the winter and a bit cooler in the summer”, “ours (as in ours, the Dutch weather) is a bit more the same all year round, we don’t have the high’s and we don’t have the lows.

With that said, Oh my gosh, if it rains in Indiana, it RAINS. If it is warm, it is WARM (with 85% humidity) and if it is cold, it is COLD (as in my little nose hairs will freeze against the inside of my nose cold).

And thunderstorms, Yes, you kinda know what is coming;
The thunderstorms are mind blowing even without the occasional twister…

It was 2008 and I was in full chemo mode.
To cheer me up and comfort me, my little sister came from the Netherlands and helped my hubby, mom & dad and brother driving me back and forth to the hospital and assisting me from my bed to our living room. Every Sunday I would almost feel like a human being again and this particular Sunday, because my sister was here, my mom suggested to go out to dinner. She wanted something fancy but all I cared for was a Big Mac.

I really didn’t feel like going at all, but to please my mom and because my little sister was here I agreed to go to Mc Donalds… Best thing ever, Mc Donalds, even if you do nasty chemo…

The funny thing here in the US is that if there is a thunderstorm, or big rain or anything like that coming, they usually do a really good job in letting you know. But us stubborn foreigners and not to familiar with the news broadcasting saw the news (and the HUGE storm coming our way) and decided to ignore it…

My sister even asked us if we could go, with the thunderstorm coming our way and all. But i was like, “Yeah, sure!”  I had after all set my mind on a Big Mac! Nothing could stop me fromg getting to dinner now!

We went to Mickey D’s and got myself a nice Big Mac and watched TV (because there are TV’s EVERYWHERE here) on which they kept announcing bad weather. My little sister (and yes she is 30 now, and not so little anymore, but she is my little sister) got a tiny bit more worried. She asked pretty much everybody every five seconds if it was safe to drive home and what that (meaning the tornado alarm) was on TV….? “Nothing to worry about” I told her. “American’s like to over react…”

After 5 minutes, it really doesn’t take long to eat a Big Mac, the sky turned into a real ugly green…

By that time the news lady sounded a bit panicky too…

It started lightning, and the sky turned into an even uglier green and reddish color…

The Amish buggies were flashing by Mc Donalds, probably trying to get home in time, and I felt a bit sick. Not because I eat too much (or because my stomach had shrunk to the size of a peanut during chemo, and I couldn’t possibly eat a whole Big Mac), no… I did NOT like the way the sky looked and I wanted to go HOME!

But of course I couldn’t let my sister feel whatever it was that I was feeling, I after all told her not to worry and that those crazy Americans exaggerate immensely, all the time… storms included…

My sister didn’t want to leave! By that time she was so scared she decided to stay put.

So we pretty much PUSHED her in the car, telling her we had to go home, to the farm to be exact, we had over 2000 cows we needed to look at, not to mention 7 employees, that probably were as scared as we were, trying to keep the farm running (power outage, looked more and more an issue at hand).

When we got to the first intersection I looked right, and I shouldn’t have done that …

I saw sparks coming off of electric posts breaking and crashing to the ground. Tree tops flying by and police cars and firefighter trucks speeding to the far end of town (All the Amish buggies had disappeared by that time). This was the direction we needed to go, but my dad wisely (after seeing the look on my face) decided to drive straight South.

Limbs (no not branches, LIMBS) were flying by, leaves everywhere, hail the size of golf balls, and RAIN, so much RAIN…. We couldn’t drive fast, but my dad drove as fast as he dared to go. My little sister was ducked down in the back of the car cursing at us and screaming “that we should have listened to those weather reporters!”

I agreed…

We turned on the road leading to our dairy and the wind suddenly disappeared. We pulled into our drive and the sun was shining. No storm, or there was a storm just seconds ago, scene anywhere!
The power didn’t even blink!

The next day we found out there was indeed a tornado, touched down, merely half a mile from our Mc Donalds at pretty much the same time we left the building and it ripped up trees, posts and houses. Luckily nobody was hurt (al the SMART Americans listened to the TV or radio and went to the basement).

My little sister and I drove up to the hospital the next day, watching all the rubbish and trees and phone poles lying around and she told me, if she ever was to come back to the US and if they ever were to announce a storm, she was staying home! In the basement!

And I agreed...


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