More tornado stories from yours truly

The first time was in Elizabeth, Colorado back in June 2015.  I was at the grocery store shopping when I got a tornado warning sent to my phone.  I was still a new Colorado transplant at the time, so this was my very first real tornado.  As the funnel cloud went over the store, the lights flickered, and the power went out.  The employees directed the shoppers to the back of the store, but very foolishly I decided to go outside and see it for myself, because I had never seen a real tornado before (other than a weak landspout in the California desert, never a rotating supercell tornado, much more dangerous).  As I went outside, I watched the funnel cloud rotate above and across the parking lot and move towards an open field.  It reminded me of a carousel of clouds rotating and simultaneously dropping funnels that were going up and down like a merry go round at the fair.  I was very fortunate that it didn't touch down where I was watching it, because I found out later that it did touch down and do some damage a little bit farther East from where I was, and it still touched down in the same county I was in.  The second time was in Kentucky last summer in May of 2024, and I was at work on my lunch break outside in my car when I saw fast moving black clouds heading towards the building I work in.  I quickly got inside my work and the lights went out, and I heard all of the wind.  I knew it was a tornado because we were under a watch and also when the power went out, it reminded me of the Colorado tornado years ago.  This Kentucky tornado actually took part of our roof, downed trees in our parking lot and took out our air-conditioning units.  I do have the full story of this tornado in one of my blogs if you want to go back and read more about it.  Little did I know though, was that this same tornado was a precursor to the big tornado we had this year on May 16th, 2025.  Thank God I wasn't at work when it happened because not only did it hit our store again and take part of our roof and down trees in our parking lot again, but it also flattened and demolished buildings and homes around my work and in the same town.  I also have this full story on one of my former blogs if you want to read it.  I have heard several more tornado survivor stories from this tornado in my community that I want to share.  One of my clients was at her house when she got a tornado warning on her phone, she quickly went downstairs to her basement only to hear all of the windows of her home upstairs breaking; and then she heard the tornado!  She didn't know if she was going to have a home when it was finished.  When she came out of her basement her garage was completely gone, her car was totaled, and her storage unit was gone.  Of course, her windows were broken, she had roof damage, and the tornado had left scouring marks in the ground outside.  She was very shocked that her house was still standing and so were her neighbors who had lost their homes.  I thought it was because she had a brick home, because brick homes can withstand windspeeds up to 185 miles per hour.  It was a miracle really because her neighbors across the street from her lived in a multi-million-dollar brick home and it was not only completely twisted off of its foundation, but it was also demolished, a total loss.  This was no small tornado, later it was found to be an EF4, which is huge on the Enhanced Fujita scale.  Another story I heard from one of my customers: she was at home with her husband when they got alerted for a tornado warning, she said the wind was so loud and blowing so strong that she thought her backdoor was going to blow in, she said she'll never forget the sound.  The tornado went right by her home though and flattened the trees around her home and she also had window blinds and debris from other people's homes in her yard.  The last story I heard is the most harrowing.  One of my coworkers' friends was driving to a family member's house to get to their basement when they accidentally intercepted the tornado with their car, they said it literally came out of nowhere, it was nighttime though, so that certainly didn't help.  They saw it when their headlights from their car illuminated it, they tried to turn around and outrun it, but instead they were picked up in their car and tossed down a ravine.  Miraculously they all survived and healed from their injuries.  What I've learned from all of this is don't play with the weather, especially in the south.  I make sure to stay weather aware during tornado season and always have a worst-case scenario plan.