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Richard Jernigan -> RE: Gotta love Texas during tornado season. (May 26 2011 19:26:30)
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Congratulations on your narrow escape.
My mother grew up on a family farm in northwestern Oklahoma at the base of the panhandle. Tornados were a regular occurrence. She left when she was 18. Her family moved to far South Texas where tornados are extremely rare.
When I was 9 or 10 I went with my mother, her mother and one of her sisters on a visit to Woodward and Mooreland, the two nearest towns to the farm. The farmhouse was wrecked, the fencerows were heaped with dirt as a result of the Dust Bowl. They left just in time.
The only thing left more or less intact was the earthen cellar. It was a little way from the house. It was used as a cool place to store root vegetables, apples, canned food in jars, and salted beef in barrels through the hard winters.
It was also used as a tornado shelter. The ceiling was at least four feet below ground level, reinforced with logs that were quite scarce on that grassland prairie. It had a heavy steel door that would have been a considerable expense.
My mother would shake her head and mutter about people living in tornado country without a storm cellar. But that's the way it's done nowadays.
RNJ
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