"Get Up NOW, Kids"

There's a fun song about Oklahoma; maybe you've heard it? It comes from a musical, Oklahoma! The odd high school theatre group will get adventurous and perform it every once in a while ... I'm not sure which one this is, but they did a pretty good job: "Oklahoma! Finale" The musical really doesn't have much to do with the state as a whole, at least not any more (although water rights were one of the first chapters we did in realtor school). No, it's the first line of the title song that I want to focus on here:

Oklahoma! Where the wind comes sweepin' down the plain!

Yeah ... wind. Chicago's known as the Windy City, but I think they must just have a better PR department, because anyone who's ever been here during a spring storm would *never* argue that Rodgers and Hammerstein had it wrong. I blogged on 5 March about the fun shelter-opening-by-necessity episode. Last night was a whole different dog.

By 9:00 the twins were in bed, elder daughter was slung back on the sofa with the laptop, the spousal unit was watching telly, and I was parked here doing a bit of catch-up ... when what to my wondering eyes should appear (wrong season, I know, but hang with me here) but the NewsChannel4 4-Warn Desktop Weather widget with many counties lit up in a variety of colors. (The widget pops up a map of the state ... each county is lit up a different color based on the worst thing that's happening there, and there's a legend at the top of the map, plus there's a little crawl along the bottom of the screen that replicates the crawl at the bottom of the TV screen ... you can click on any county to find out what warnings are on and when they expire, plus there's a link to a live radar ... it's TOTALLY nifty ... for the uninitiated (including the short-timer and the non-resident), here's a map: Counties in Oklahoma ... that should help, although you have to scroll down a bit). We're in the far-ish north-northwest bit of Oklahoma County, so anything that floats into far eastern Canadian County is pretty well guaranteed to nail us unless it blows out first (which isn't likely). I was watching as Caddo County, Canadian County, and Grady County went from orange (severe thunderstorm warning) to red (tornado warning) pretty quickly. It seemed fairly certain that we were next, which was very odd to me, as Oklahoma County was gray (meaning nothing's going on for that county - no watches, warnings, or otherwise).

The children hear the storm outside, and the younger two head into our bedroom to watch its progress on TV with us. (Elder daughter can sleep through most anything ... she's her mum's girl, that one!) Midnight comes and goes, and with it no sign of anything awful in our neck of the woods; the twins fall asleep in our bed, so I take them upstairs and tuck them in. Within five minutes, I'm tucked up in my own bed and drifting off to sleep, with the sounds of thunderstorm filtering in from the night outside.

Then the sound outside changes ... and not in a nice way.

Mark is still watching one of the three local network affiliates (NBC, ABC, CBS ... I wouldn't have Fox on unless all the others were dead and gone), and the voices start getting excited about a downdraft and inflow around a hook-echo denoting a circulation (this is tornado talk, and the weather kids will *never* explain it on TV, but if you watch enough of it, you get the idea). This new happening is just south of Mercy Hospital, not far from Quail Springs Mall, just around Lake Hefner Parkway. Mark nudges me and says, "It's us now, it's us, isn't that us?" He hops up out of bed and starts slamming his limbs into clothing as I open my eyes and see the circulation graphics on the TV screen to the accompaniment of Gary England (and bless THAT man's heart ... what are we all going to do when he retires? Perish the thought) ... then the sirens begin, and we know this time it's real.

Really, REALLY real ... wake the children real ... decide what's important enough to grab and leave the rest real.

From the bottom of our staircase, I can shout to reach all three darlings in their bedrooms, which is what I do next. My inner drill sergeant awakens and makes herself known: "KYMBER! KIERAN! KENDALL! OUT OF BED, CLOTHES ON, DOWNSTAIRS, RIGHT NOW!"

The children have heard me shout them out of bed plenty of times, but usually it's because they'll be late for school; I've *never* done it in the middle of the night with the sirens sounding. To their very great credit, they are at the front door with shoes on and jackets in hand, ready to go to the shelter, in record time. I've grabbed a pillow and flashlight, my bag, a hoodie, the house keys, the garage door opener, and the keys to Thumper and Skarlet, and we all head down to the shelter (except Mark, who's gone upstairs to get the bag of cuddly toys that was packed "just in case" but left on Kendall's bed in her haste). It turns out that the Mustang was *almost* pulled up far enough, but it was a bit of a squeeze to get in ... get in we did, though, and it was our luck that the sirens stopped as Mark was getting down the steps (not that anybody noticed but him).

The children did brilliantly. There was no crying, there were no shrieks, there was no panic (at the disco or otherwise, ha) ... there was just our family, performing as needs must when you live on the Oklahoma prairie. We got out of the shelter soaked, because the wind was whipping the rain as we were getting into the shelter, so everyone changed into dry clothes and went wearily back to bed.

Meanwhile, back at the cool desktop weather widget, the same counties that lit up last night are lighting up again right now.

:::sigh:::