Bob Duncan has had a little excitement in his life (as if he really needed it). Excepting that it happened to one of our own, it is not strictly a wargaming article, but something in which I thought you all might be interested. This was the same tornado laden storm front that wreaked so much devastation on Clarksville, TN in the middle of January, 1999. Anyhow, let me let Bob tell it: Hi guys, I am finally back up for air after our tornado adventure. A week ago today (Sunday) a small tornado came through our neighborhood, skipping along at 50 mph. Most of the damage was superficial but Mom's house (3 doors away) got hammered pretty hard. It carried off her back porch - all of it. It pulled roofing off including one section of decking. At that point she had a "see-thru" attic! The garage door was caved in and wrecked. My house did not get a scratch! With all the dire warning on TV I hustled everybody into an interior walk-in closet dogs and all. I went to the front door that looks in the direction the storm was coming from. I have always enjoyed thunder and lightning but I have never seen such! The lightning was jumping from cloud to cloud and the sky was constantly lit. I heard the funnel before I "saw" it. There is a small industrial area over behind our neighborhood. The funnel hit one of the metal buildings and I heard the loudest noise I have ever witnessed. It was ripping off the metal - all at once and grinding it together. The funnel itself was making a low pitched but very loud "moaning" sound interspersed with buildings being destroyed as it hit them As I was slamming the door to join the closet crowd I glimpsed the funnels' approach. I did not so much see the funnel as I saw "glitter". It was the hundreds of pieces of sheet metal as it swirled within the funnel! The glitter was caused by the lightning. Thinking of Granny (Ms Lila) I went out the backdoor faster than these old legs have travelled in many a day. I heard a number of crashes as it passed over quickly. It was travelling at 50 mph (so the weatherman said) and it was all over within a few seconds. Very long seconds' As I headed for Ms. Lila's I noticed something was different. The power was out but there was so much lightning that it was very easy to see. I glanced at the damage to her house and went running in. She was sitting in the living room calmly KNITTING! The lady did not have the proper appreciation of the momentous events around us! Obviously she was okay and she said that she HAD heard a loud noise! NO JOKE? Being the ultimate stoic she refuses to let such trivial things as tornados get her goal. It did weird things around her house. Her back porch was sucked into the air and deposited about a block away. The porch swing was carried off with it. It did not survive beyond what can charitably be called kindling. The back of her house was "sandblasted" with pine needles from nearby trees. A few of those trees ended up in her yard and some of them had to be cut up so that we could get in her driveway. She has (had) three heavy rocking chairs on her front porch. They are all slightly different and have sat in the same order for as long as I can remember. The middle one was carried away to be smashed across the street in the neighbors yard. The other two had SWAPPED places' Too weird! Up on the root it was much the same story. It pulled sections of shingles off here and there but right in the middle it pulled off one whole 4'x 8' section plywood decking - shingles and all, and left a gaping hole in the roof that rain was freely passing through. It turned out that the decking with all the shingles still attached had been ripped off and then gently deposited right next to the hole. I did the first thing YOU should do if this ever happens to you. I called my handy man/plumber/electrician/philosopher first! Those guys are always in big demand and you better get them while you can! I called Kip Reel and my brother Don loaded up a crew and headed to us from Franklin. We hustled furniture out of her living room as the ceiling was beginning to spout water. Kip came and heroically stripped down tarps on the roof for temporary repairs before too very much water got it. Lightning was still very active and a roof is no place to be in such weather! The rain was pretty light - thank goodness! We sawed trees into the wee hours and cleaned up what we could see. Repairs got started at first light the next day and now it is hard to tell anything has happened to her house. The back porch will be back on this week. The yard is all cleaned up. Ms. Lila's Christmas gift from our bunch were two 12' maple trees that the nursery man would plant where ever she wanted them. He showed up early the next morning and planted them amongst the destruction! Remember the sheet metal? The tornado dumped it all about a mile farther on. It is tangled in trees, wedged in fencerows, wrapped around utility poles - great gobs of it. I stopped and picked up a smallish piece that I am going to hang on the wall of my screened porch as a memento of the excitement. Oddly enough, Ms. Lila seemed to enjoy all the excitment! As the tornado pulled the roof off it probably saw her with those sharp knitting needles in her hands and decided to move on the "softer" targets! Sorry that I have been so "silent" all this week - but, as Paul Harvey says, now you know the rest of the story! Bob Back to Dispatch Feb. 99 Table of Contents Back to Dispatch List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1999 by HMGS Mid-South This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com