The Storm and the Storm Cellar
The Storm and the Storm Cellar
by Danny C. Wash
The storm clouds were thick and black approaching from the North with thunder rumbling and lightning flashing across the sky like bright crooked knives of energy stabbing whatever unlucky thing they touched on the ground. My dog, Rex, took refuge under the couch where he always hid whenever he heard the rolling thunder. I called it his “fortress of solitude” like Superman’s, only it was his place of security from the sounds. It was dark and the rain began, at first with small drops, but it soon came down in waves with small hail pelting on our tin roof sounding like a combination of snare drums and cymbals from a drummer gone wild. The wind was beginning to howl louder and louder.
It was 1954. I was nine years old living with my parents Mother switched on the Philco table top radio and twisted the tuner dial to the station that had weather news to see if any of the storm watchers had seen a tornado that might threaten us with destructive winds. The lightning was causing the radio to crackle loudly, as we tried to hear if there were tornadoes in the area. Finally, we heard that there were some tornadoes popping up around our community. My father said we better head to the storm cellar just in case.
Back then, in west Texas, most of us had storm cellars, as we called them. However, the storm cellars weren’t under our house, they were a large hole dug in the ground out back with wood or metal beams stretched over the hole, a tin metal roof put over the beams and then a mound of rocks and dirt put on top of the roof to hold it down. It had a door made of a wood frame and tin laying down. The door was laid over the stair entrance that guarded the steps downward into the storm cellar. Around the walls, were usually laid wood benches for people to sit. We always reluctantly went into these storm cellars because in the summer they were dry and cool places for rattlesnakes and black widow spiders to frequent. If we hadn’t been in the cellar for awhile, we would cautiously enter with flashlights waiting for any telltale buzzing sound from the rattler’s shaking tail to warn us away.
The storm cellar we used was shared with the people next door, the Mankins, who had helped us dig and then build the shelter several years ago. There was a break in the wind and rain, so we headed with our flashlights to the cellar. There was no light in there so we needed flashlights. As we entered, we saw that the Mankins were already in the cellar. There were the parents and small boy, a couple of years younger than me and his sister, a little older. Also, they had their elderly grandma with them. So, with us and our neighbors, the cellar was a little crowded. Of course, there was no air conditioning or ventilation, except a three-inch wide pipe sticking up through the roof with a small roof-type piece of metal over the top of it to keep out the rain. We left the cellar door open as long as possible and the men would usually stand on the steps in the open doorway with their heads poking out, if the rain was not falling.
The women and kids were stuck below and I could smell the damp earth, sweat, body odor and the snuff that the grandma had on a matchstick in her mouth. It made me feel sick and I almost puked. Rex was there panting, as if he had run a mile and he could not be still, barking each time it thundered and probably wondering why we took him from his fortress into all these smells. I could hear the two men talking about this cloud and that one exposed by lightning and wondering if a funnel would drop from one. And then, someone made a bad smell in the cellar and my mother looked at me with a glare that could melt ice. I saw what she was thinking and I told her it wasn’t me. I think it was the little boy or grandma. Grandma then blurted out, “who farted” and Ms. Mankin said, “whoever did that, please don’t do it again” and that was the end of that.
The rain began again and the wind picked up from a breeze to a howl. When a bolt of lightning flashed, Dad saw what he thought might be a funnel dropping down from one of the clouds and decided they should close the cellar door. When it was closed, the two men had to tie it down to the frame, so it would not be sucked off the door frame by a tornado and us with it. They had just secured it when we heard a loud banging on the tin of the door and someone hollering, “Hey, can we come down there?” Dad opened the door and there stood the Millers from across the street. They were fairly new to the community and did not have a cellar. There was Mr. Miller, his wife, and three children. Dad said “sure, we will squeeze you in somehow,” and we did.
The Millers had three boys, ages 6, 8, and 11. I knew them from school and they were all mean as the dickens and argued with each other every moment they weren’t asleep. So, now we were all shoulder to shoulder in the dimness of the cellar. Of course, within two minutes of them sitting down on the bench across the back wall, one of the Miller boys started an argument with the other about which side of their mother they were going to sit. Then the other one said, “Mom, I need to pee.” Mrs. Miller said, “well, you’re just going to have to hold it, there’s no bathroom down here.” So, he just sat there, wiggling his legs back and forth in some pain. Rex got up from laying under the bench where the boy was sitting, as if he understood that he could be in a danger zone. Rex proceeded to smell different people and then picked another spot by my mother, who always smelled good.
I brought my yo-yo with me in my pocket and I took it out to pass the time. It was a red and black wood Duncan yo-yo that my grandfather gave me for my birthday. I was getting good at doing the “walk the dog” and “creeper” tricks and I could even make it spin at the bottom for a few seconds. But, when the youngest Miller kid saw my Duncan, he immediately started whining to his mother about wanting to come get mine. My mother told me to put it up, so I did. About that time, the excitement outside began to increase, as my father heard a loud noise approaching.
It was at first just a roaring of the wind, but then very quickly the sound became as loud as a fast moving train. And, then we knew it was a tornado on the ground in our area. My Dad and the other two men grabbed hold of the inside chains attached to the door to hold it down if the tornado got close. They knew that sometimes the suction from a tornado could pull off the door of a storm cellar. The sound grew louder and louder and one of the women began to cry and scream in fear. Suddenly, part of the tin from the door ripped away and then the whole frame was torn away and gone. And, gone with it was Mr. Miller, who was jerked away with the frame, while holding the attached chain around his arm. Dad and Mr. Mankin were both pulled up but they let go of the chains and were not sucked away.
As I looked up out of the open stairs from where I was being held by Mother, I saw that the tornado was right over us. I could see debris swirling in the air and a car and the roof of a house twirling up, higher into the air inside the tornado. Even though it was still night, the full moon provided enough light to see the inside of the tornado. In a few minutes the worst was over and the tornado moved on in its path of destruction.
We all emerged from the shelter. Mrs. Miller was screaming and crying for her husband, who was nowhere to be seen. It was near dawn and the light from the sun, slightly under the horizon, provided enough light to see the destruction. The Miller’s house, that used to sit across the street from our house, was completely gone. The only thing left were some of the supporting blocks the house rested upon. The tin on the roof of our house was almost completely gone. The trees around our house, since it was July had their full leaf canopies, but now were completely stripped of leaves making them appear as in mid-winter. The trunks of all of them were still standing but many limbs were broken or torn away. All the water from our small fish pond in the yard was gone, along with the goldfish, a few of which we saw flopping on the grass. My mother would not let go of my hand, as she stood in still disbelief of what she was seeing. Mrs. Miller was running around and around frantically looking for her husband. She told her boys to get back in the shelter and sit down. She ran to Dad, screaming for him to help her look for her husband. Dad tried to calm her, assuring her he would begin looking immediately and would ask others to help.
About that time, Mrs. Miller looked around and saw in the dim light, a human figure slowly limping toward her. Could it be, could it be, Mr. Miller? Mrs. Miller and Dad rushed toward the dim figure and, sure enough, it was him. His face was filled with cuts and scratches. Blood trickled down from a cut and knot on top of his bald head. He was holding his left arm with his right hand, as if it was broken or badly sprained. But, strangely he was smiling, as he hugged his wife with his right arm. Mrs. Miller broke into a flood of tears.
After he sat down and we all gathered around, he began to tell us what he had been through. He said, he was sucked up into the tornado because his hand was caught by the door chain. He told us about being tossed around and around and up and down, like he was in a mixer. He saw cars, parts of houses, people, cows, wood, roof tin, limbs, and all kinds of other debris sucked up into the funnel. He told us he was praying for God to save him. And, then he paused, as if he was in a trance, and said the strangest thing causing all those around him to gasp. He said he saw a large white figure, with a beautiful face and giant wings, take hold of him in its arms and then he blacked out and the next thing he knew he was laying in a cotton field. After that, most of the people thought Mr. Miller must have imagined that angel from the bump on his head and was knocked silly. They thought that must have been what happened because no one had ever heard of an angel doing something like that.
The local newspaper heard about his story and sent a reporter out to interview him several days later, but Mr. Miller’s wife wouldn’t let him talk to the reporter for fear everyone else would think he was crazy. But, one thing Mr. Miller showed a few of us the next day was a large white feather he said he found down the back of his shirt later that same day. He said it must have been from the angel, but to me it looked like it could have been some kind of large bird’s feather. However, no one could convince Mr. Miller it wasn’t an angel and he told that story to everyone who asked. I wanted to believe him because for a man to survive something like that would almost take a miracle.
After the return of Mr. Miller that morning, we all begin to look at the damage from the tornado. When we looked at our house, we could see that more than half of the tin was gone from the roof and almost all the windows were blown out. The Mankin’s house was still there, but it had similar damage to our house. My grandparents, who lived in the next town about 10 miles away, arrived to our house to check on us about an hour later and we were glad to see them. It appears that the tornado cut a wide swath through the town damaging houses erratically, completely destroying one and barely damaging others. My parents set out trying to cover the missing part of the roof and boarding up windows. We had to go live with my grandparents while repairs were made. The Millers would have to do the same by staying at the house of the mother of Mrs. Miller.
It took a few weeks of work before the damaged houses and buildings in our community were completely repaired by everyone pitching in together to rebuild. One week a large group from a church in the next town brought lumber and workers to start rebuilding the Miller’s house, which took several weeks of weekends to rebuild. And we never had another tornado in our community again, although several times we did have to spend most of the night in our storm cellar remembering that terrible night of the tornado. Rex was okay also, but he spent most evenings in the summer in his “fortress.”
