"The Tornado"
It was a normal day in Kansas, bright and sunny outside although it was foggy and damp from the storm that had come through yesterday. For the past week on the news, the weatherman said that a big storm should come through soon so it is best to begin to take cover, but in Kansas it is normal to have storms come through, so my grandmother and I weren't worried and we only decided to put a simple tarp over the roof.
My name is Violet, and my parents had passed away from a storm, which is why I live with my grandma. It happened when they left me with my grandmother and told me they would be back in a week, and their death happened with many others. Their plane had been struck by lightening while they were over water, so only most of the people on the plane found air but the others died. And my parents were apart of the ones that had not found air and drowned.
The night came and I fell fast asleep while my grandma was sleeping upstairs. I was awoken to a loud thud and when I looked out my window, I knew the tarp wouldn't help our home from not falling down. When I got out of my bed my feet felt somewhat wet, and when I turned my light on water was up to my ankles. My first instinct was to run, but then I remembered about my grandmother, and I began to run up to her room.
When I got to her room, she was still fast asleep so I began to wake her up. As soon as she was awake I grabbed her arm and told her that we needed to get out the house and see whats going on. { by this time the water downstairs was knee deep and the lights flickered on and off while the storm loudly continued} As we went downstairs, my grandma went first and I went second.
But when I went down the stairs it felt as if the whole world shook and I tripped, falling on the stairs when all of a sudden the pictures fall from the wall breaking glass and cutting my hand. The cut was deep in my hand and now my face was soaked with tears of pain but I was determined to find out what storm this was and how I could do something to help my grandma and I live. So I ran downstairs and opened the door, although my grandma kept asking me is my hand was okay. And what I saw coming was unbelievable and I couldn't believe my eyes were seeing this almost at my home. I didn't even tell my grandma what it was, all I did was grab her hand and we ran to the basement as fast as possible.
When we got to the basement, she said, " What was it you grabbed me before I could even see ? "
I answered with a sound of fear, " A huge tornado is coming our way right now. Take cover ! "
I saw how close the tornado was and how big it was so I knew to take cover right away. So we both took cover and I hid in the bathtub of the bathroom that was in the basement with as many blankets and pillows I could find while my grandmother only sat criss-crossed on the ground as if waiting for something to happen. But in the next five seconds I knew that my grandmother had made a bad choice to sit on the floor.
All of a sudden, the house rips apart and I peek from out the bathtub to see my grandmother being sucked away with the tornado. I knew I was safe and I knew the tornado had passed by now so I got up to see the damage. When I looked, all I saw was the sky shining in from where the whole home had used to be and water being flooded in. I found a way out what used to be the basement and began the search for my grandmother with my hand still gushing blood and being in bad pain.
I began my search in the way I had seen the tornado pass through the home. While searching, all I saw was torn down homes and some of the homes I passed by also had families huddling next to each other, with most people crying. It felt as if I had walked to the moon and back looking for my grandma, I had even began to search through the torn up homes, when all of a sudden I hear a loud yelling type of noise in a far distance. I began running in the direction of the scream with the rain still falling from the sky and with me in water that is up to my waist by now.
When I got to where I heard the scream I knew that I had finally found my grandmother ! She was laying on her back on a piece of wood that had been left of a home holding her hand. She looked in very bad pain and she had a small cut on her forehead, I walked up to her as fast as I could and took her hand. Her hand was with no blood but it was purple as if something was cutting off her circulation. I took another look to see a zip-tie around her wrist so I began to look around for scissors or something that could get the zip-tie from off her wrist. And I finally found some scissors and cut the zip-tie from off her wrist. After about 2 or 3 minutes she was up and her hand was back to her natural skin color, I was surprised that she did not have many injuries. So my grandma and I began to try to find our way back to what used to be our home.
At this point it was about 10:00 in the afternoon and during our walk we saw many people being carried on gurneys into ambulance trucks. When we found what was left of our home, we found our old sofa broke in half on the old basement floor and we tried our best to get comfortable and go to sleep. The sofa was wet and it didn't feel good enough to sleep so I stayed up most of the night and fell asleep around 2:30 am.
The next day, I woke up at what felt like 11:30 or 12:00 to see my grandma awake resting her head on the sofa. Then all I heard was an ambulance siren and I saw two men running toward my grandma and I they then asked us if we were okay and they brought us to the truck. They drove us to the hospital and gave us food and gave us a small room with two beds in it. They said that people will be working to repair all the homes that were demolished and that we would be staying in the hospital until they were done with repairing. I felt a sign of relief when they told us this because I knew that everything would be fine.
But then the doctor looked at my hand. This gave me a scared feeling like there were butterflies in my stomach, but it also gave me a happy feeling because I knew they were doctors so they could fix my hand.
The man walked up to me and said in a worried voice with a worried look on his face, " What happened to your hand ? " Then he gently took my hand.
I said, " During the tornado, I was going downstairs and the ground felt like it was shaking so I fell and so did the pictures from the wall. A picture fell and it hit my hand, breaking the glass and having the glass shatter in my hand cutting me. ", in respond.
Then the doctor ran out the hospital room and a few minutes later he ran back in with two other doctors and a small table of supplies. The doctor told me that they were going to look in my hand for glass and then stitch up the cut because it was so deep.
The doctors began to take glass out of my hand one by one, with each different piece of glass having a different pain. They had finally gotten to the last piece of glass out my hand leaving my eyes watering, and then they cleaned out the wound again to make sure that there were no glass pieces left behind. After, they took some string and a needle and I knew that the worst part had finally come. They began to stitch up my hand, and while they did this I felt tears streaming down my face. But when they were finally finished with the stitches, I knew my hand would be okay and so would I.
A couple months later, a doctor walks into the hospital room and tells us that we can leave. I was so exited when she said these words because I knew that I could get my life back on track. When we got home, I was the first one to run and see the inside of the home. Once I walked in, I knew that my life would be back to normal fast because the house looked exactly the same as before the tornado. After the experience that my grandmother and I had, we now decided to listen to the news and get prepared before time and not to put only a tarp as protection from a tornado.
THE END
