Tuesday Tell All is Back!

Did you guys catch the little update on the tta blogsite? someone has decided to take the project on themselves, their site is the same name but with hyphens (if that's what they're called) tuesday-tell-all.blogspot.com (it's in my following list) Hooray!

Okay so here's her (his) topic for today (which happens to be my anniversary btw):

Write on natural disasters. Have you ever experienced one? Are you prepared to experience one? If you had to be in a natural disaster is there one you would prefer over another?

I've never been involved in one. Living in Idaho, we didn't have much in the way of tornado's, earth quakes, hurricanes, other maybe a forest fire or two. What I remember is being stuck out in a blizzard with my little sister.

Let's see we were about 10 and 6 (me the older) and we were on our way home from school. It was really bad out and everyone's parents had come to pick them up except, of course, ours. So the neighbor lady took us, but when we got to the top of the hill on which we lived the wind was blowing so hard that it was literally white out conditions. You couldn't see anything and she didn't want to go any further. To this day I don't know what the woman was thinking, but she told us we'd have to walk the rest of the way. (which was about a football field length to our house... maybe a little more)

I really didn't want to get out of the car. I was so scared, but I was little and she was an adult so I did what she told me to. I held onto my little sister and we watched as her car disappeared into the snow then we turned and began to walk. It was so windy though that we quite literally were being tossed around. To the right side of the road, the snow was all drifted up from the plows and so what we would do was hunker down against this big long drift and wait until the wind died down and then we'd run as fast as we could until it started blowing again, then we'd dive back towards the ground and wait.

I have no clue how long we were out there, it seemed like an eternity, but we didn't get very far, two houses maybe and we were shivering, my sister's ears were swelling up from the cold and we were getting really tired. Finally the wind clears a little and we see a house to our left, we knew we were just over the hilltop from our house, half way to go and I thought we could make it, but my little sister begged me to go to that house. She said she just knew we had to. So we run across the street and I put her behind their truck where there seemed to be a pocket where the wind wasn't hitting, then I ran up to the door and started pounding.

That's when the wind picked back up and I was blown off my feet, holding on to the screen door as the rest of my body went parallel to the ground. I screamed for all I was worth and the door in front of me flew open as the man inside heard me. I yelled that my sister was outside behind his truck and he grabbed his coat and was gone in seconds, only to reappear a moment later with her in his arms.

We stayed in their house until the storm settled. They called my mom told her what was going on, it turned out that because of the slight gully that our house was in, the wind wasn't blowing nearly as hard and she hadn't known the storm was so bad. The other miracle of that day was that the family, who lived in the house we went to, had been downstairs where they usually couldn't hear the door, but they had that day and just in time too, since I was about to blow away.

My little sister's ears peeled completely, like an entire layer of skin came off them (once they warmed up) and they were swollen to about twice their normal size. She still has problems with them when it gets really cold and I think both of us suffer a bit of mild PTSD when it comes to winter storms. It was a very scary experience, especially at our ages.

Comments

Polly Blevins said…
That is a crazy story!!! I'm with you, I don't know what that lady was thinking dropping you off like that.
Polly Blevins said…
Happy Anniversary!!! Isn't it York and Dawn's also? I think I remember on their wedding you and Robert got family pics. done for your anniversary. Is that right?
Cannwin said…
ooh, I'd forgotten about that! you're right, when I was prego with el munckinchino. Happy Anniversary to York and Dawn as well, but still, we're on our 8th and they're on what 2? hah! ;)
Cannwin said…
Oh, and it's my understanding that several mothers in the neighborhood were furious with the lady for years about leaving us out there like that. But its all good now. :)
Anonymous said…
So being caught in an avalanche is something close to hell for the 2 of you.
I fell into a snow bank one time. The wind was blowing snow in my face so hard that i couldn't catch my breath and i was buried up to my thighs in a wet heavy snow so it wasn't easy to move.
I'm glad my experience was only about 3 minutes long. LOL
Cannwin said…
Well, yes, and add to that, Ivy, the fact that I'm claustrophobic and I'd be having a panic attack in about .02 seconds. A physician's assistant told me once that to really know how bad my knee is they'd probably have to do a CT scan and I thought to myself, maybe I can deal with my knee. They'd have to drug me to not have me panic inside one of those things. *shivers*
Anonymous said…
They have ones that are open. You know, for people like you. They have one in Bozeman like that.
I didn't know that you are claustrophobic.
Cannwin said…
aw, I hide it well. It's really not that bad, I just can't watch movies with scary scenes where people are crawling through ventilation shafts while water is filling it (did you see that one? I about died) nor can I handle the thought of being trapped in a confined space. As long as I know I can get out, and get out easily I'm okay, when I was little and we were all wearing those pants with the really tight ankles. Do you remember those? My mom used to have to pull them off my legs cause they'd be so tight and I'd start panicking on her. Then there was the time we went on a field trip to some caves and that cute boy thought it'd be fun to go through the really tiny shafts *sweat drops from cannwin's forehead*

I'm okay with sleeping bags (that aren't over my head) and tents (that I can stretch out in) but only if I'm not trapped in them. yikes, just the thought makes my insides turn over.

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