Lynne Simpson

One of the big selling points of this new house was that it had a tornado room. Of course, instead of outfitting it with chairs, cat carriers, a litter box, a TV, flashlights, blankets, and other things one might need during a tornado warning, we filled it full of books, old clothes, and yet-to-be-unpacked boxes.

Until this morning, we’d used the storm room only once, but we’ve been down there twice already today, once before dawn and again this afternoon. In the past, we might have been tempted to ignore the tornado sirens and take our chances upstairs, but not after the seeing the nasty damage that took place in downtown Atlanta last night.

When the tornado sirens went off this afternoon, we had visitors from out of town, and all of us had to cram into the junk room storm room along with our dogs and cats. Zoinks. Fixing up the tornado room just got moved a lot higher on my to-do list. :-)