The Tornado that Devastated St. Louis in April 2011

Devastating tornadoes and thunderstorms have been occurring throughout the United States this spring. Some of them have hit parts of the Midwest, including my city of St. Louis, Missouri. You will learn the impact the bad weather has had on me.

Parts of our area were devastated on Friday, April 22. Our airport, which is known as Lambert Field, was hit hard. Part of its roof was damaged. According to Huffpost Green, the tornado lifted the roof off Concourse C and sent plate glass flying, injuring four people.

Other areas that were hit hard in the St. Louis metropolitan area include Bridgeton, Maryland Heights, Ferguson and our town of Berkeley. I saw a picture of the devastation Bridgeton suffered in the following day's edition of The St. Louis Post-Dispatch. One of its subdivisions was totally ripped apart. It is a miracle that nobody was killed there.

We narrowly avoided being hit by the tornado, as it hit our town in a capricious way. It spared our house. Some of the houses in the blocks that surround our house were ruined. Some houses on certain streets were spared while others were not. I am amazed by this situation, as I used to think that tornadoes automatically destroyed all structures across a wide area.

I was scared that night. There was heavy wind and rain. I was using my laptop and listening to the radio here in my bedroom at eight o' clock central time, nearly an hour after I finished cooking cheeseburgers for dinner. I heard tornado warning sirens and directions to take cover but ignored them. Suddenly, there was loud thunder and our power went out. My parents, dog and I quickly went to the basement. After a few minutes, the storm subsided and we went back upstairs.

Power lines fell down in our area. This led to the police closing down or blocking traffic at certain spots, including the intersection we live on. Motorists who came to our stoplight were diverted onto our street instead of being allowed to drive past the stoplight. Some of them went in circles around our block for a while, as there is no way out going the other direction. Once they came back to the stoplight, they had to get back onto the main road from the direction they came from if they did not want to park their cars on our street overnight.

Our power was out until 2:00 PM on April 25. During the power outage, we had to eat dinner by candlelight and walk around the house with flashlights in the dark. While I am glad that our house was not damaged, I am sad for others who live nearby. Every day, I walk past houses that suffered extensive damage. The roofs and walls are covered with blue sheets and the doors and windows are boarded up. This is an ugly sight and a sad reminder of the damage that bad weather sometimes brings.

Jim Salter and Jim Suhr, "Huffpost Green"