Riding out the Tornadoes, Severe Weather and Storms in Memphis, Tennessee

I got home in time to catch the news reports from the two tornadoes I saw while driving on Interstate 40. The one to my left hit parts of Bartlett and Arlington while the one I saw near the end of my ride home ate a chunk out of the Hickory Ridge Mall. My friend pastors New Direction Christian Church which is directly across the street from the mall. In fact, members of the church park in the mall's parking lot on Tuesday nights for Tuesday Night Together services that on a normal Tuesday night would have begun at 7pm.

Amazingly this storm has the look and field just like Hurricane Elvis did in 2004. I was walking home from the Greenlaw Park when the clouds rolled in and an unrestrained deposit of rainwater and winds hit the city of Memphis like never before. My lights were off after Hurricane Elvis for over a week and my wife and I were forced to stay with friends while MLGW struggled to restore power across the city's grid, one priority at a time.

Memories of Hurricane Elvis flooded my mind by the time I got home to my dad's house in Cordova. When the next morning arrived after Elvis had visited the city one-third of the city was without power and most of the city was blocked by trees, vehicles and other debris. I expected the same thing after enduring the second wave of excitement for the evening.

Around nine in the evening, after hearts had calmed down, the sirens that had sounded for hours suddenly started roaring again. Across the Mississippi River what looked like a static storm could be seen in West Memphis that was headed directly towards the city. Around the same time what sounded like two 747s overhead could be heard. But this was no airplane this was the wind announcing its presence again. I looked at my dad, he looked at me, and we knew, it was about to get bad again. We were in the garage where my dad smokes his cigarettes at. I wondered how much noise the garage door would make. My dad wondered if the wind was strong enough to blow up under the door and quench the fire out of his cigarette.

Roaring outside the metal on the garage door began to shake violently before our eyes. Like someone with their hands on the bottom and shaking the entire structure like some deranged gorilla the garage door just wiggled like a rag doll while the trees outside begged for mercy from the winds anger. Trees that have been in the ground for over twenty-five years had their spines bent in submission to the wind that blew with little effort through the corridor of land behind the house. Amidst that grassy area behind the fence, shingles and wood splints flew in the wind like birds without wings.

In an amazing display in the darkness the wind blew behind the house while the cove flooded in front of the house. My car, a Ford Taurus had its front end submerged to the front of the engine by the amount of water flowing to the edge of the cove which is near the drain which was choking from the water runoff streaming down its throat. At some point, my dad and I looked at each other and realized, dejectedly that there was nothing more for us to do but wait the storm out by lying in the bed and waiting for the storm and the day that brought it to end.

So when I woke up this morning I was convinced of one thing, I had seen a storm. Now I was going to see what the storm had done.