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Jeff Graves Mr. Nueburger Eng. Comp 101-132 27 September 2011 Descriptive Essay A Night to Remember"

It was in the early morning hours on a January night when I woke up to frightening and startling sounds of a whirlwind happening. Lets go back a few hours to about 11 p.m. on the evening before. My girlfriend, my pup Gucci and I were all sitting around the cozy house on a cold winter evening watching the meteorologists giving reports of the weather on TV. The late afternoon was quite different from any other in January, as a warm front was nearing. We were glued to the weather trying to keep up as to where the storms were popping up that evening. I stayed up for quite some time that night knowing something wasnt right. There was a dewy smell of thunderstorms and heavy hitting rain in the distance. The eerie noise of the wind was whistling through the bare branches of the trees. But knowing it was sure to just be thunderstorms I turned off the weather to enjoy some thunder as I fell asleep. We began to hear sounds of booming rumbles in the distance and intense rain striking the siding of our home. Tornado sirens were screaming and they echoed through the quiet neighborhoods. We get up from bed and throw sweatshirts and flannel pants on. Behind the curtains, I could see the dark, almost purple sky being lit up by flashing and constant lightening. I turned on the television in the living room to get updated. It was a worse than I had originally thought, tornadoes had popped up all over the state. It was an astonishing line of threatening

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storms and tornado warnings. But the noise of the sirens faded and quit and shortly after that the threat diminished, for the time being. As we watched the T.V. heavy eyed and drowsy we again drift to sleep; with the bright lights from the T.V. reflecting on the walls and glaring back into our faces. About an hour passes when the tornado sirens began echoing again. My girlfriend and I woke up at the exact same time, we sat straight up, looked at each other. I remember having this inner gut feeling that something wasnt right. We were panic-stricken and knew we needed to find a safe place and take cover. Kayley grabs a flashlight and our dog; that was alarmed and on edge at the commotion. Im freaking out trying to find a place to keep my family safe. I began frantically tearing shelves out of a small hallway closet like a mad man looking for diamonds I had lost. The closet was full of nicely folded blankets and sheets. I told Kayley that we were all going to have to get in there. I sat her in there with our little dog; it was tight with just them alone in there. The adrenaline that was running through my body told me, we would all have to fit. As soon as we get crammed in the pantry we start hearing crazy sounds, like thrashing rain and almost a whooping deep wind like it was going through whipping things against the house. Kayley is upset and began to cry. But there was no speaking, just an unusual silence as we listened to the storms trying to make out what we were hearing. The clatter and commotion that was raging outside only lasted a matter of minutes. We waited about five minutes to make sure the storm has passed us before wondering out of the pantry. There was stillness in the air. When we walk outside I cant believe my eyes, it was pitch black, besides the couple of street lights in the distance and the sporadic lightening strikes. When the lightning struck, the sky lit up to reveal some of the damage. The big, normally empty back yard was flooded with rushing water

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and pieces of black and light colored objects all over. I remember thinking that the neighborhood had been hit and that pieces of my neighbors shingles and siding were all over the place. As well as thrown up against the house. It was dark and we couldnt tell how bad the damage was on the outside of the home and throughout the street. We knew we were okay and the storms were over. There was nothing more we could do that evening and we needed to try to get some actual rest before the morning. Just as daylight broke and the sun came up out of the east; I began to hear a trickle of water and drips. They were fading in the back of my mind as I was trying to figure out what it was. The noise continually dripped, and then suddenly I knew what it was. I tracked down the noise that was saturating the floors and carpets throughout the house. Water was seeping in through the roof. The walls were water soaked and the paint was bubbled out where water was filling it up like balloon and the carpet was squishing full of water under our feet. We start surveying the house and neighborhood, realizing the tattered siding and frayed shingles that filled the backyard, were from our own home. Our carpet was water logged and the ceilings began to cave in where the water was so heavily weighing it down. All was well with us, and no one was harmed, but our house needed some repairs. It was this odd eerie warm winter night in January that I will always remember.