This is on Severe Weather?

Of course!

It was a typical Friday afternoon and I was just being lazy getting in from school. I keep up with the weather and the forecast called for a slight chance of rain.

I went to bed about 9 PM and the News had said a slight chance of severe storms. I went to bed thinking it was nothing. I was sleeping soundly about 11 PM when my NO AA weather radio went off for a tornado watch. Not knowing why the watch was being issued, I flipped the channel over to the local ABC programming. The meteorologists were very worried soundings as they said Tornado Warnings had been issued for very many counties and parishes in the viewing area. I immediately got worried as they put up on the screen of all the Tornado Warnings. There were many warnings just to the west of us and they mentioned the storms were moving east. I cold shiver went down my spine as the meteorologist said these were long lived, dangerous, and deadly tornadoes reported on the ground. I immediately called the rest of my family because they all live in mobile homes, and I a foundation house. By the time the family arrived, the weather radio was sounding the alarm for Tornado Warnings in the western part of our parish, since we live in the eastern part of the parish, I got everyone in the hallway with all of our supplies. About 35 minutes later, a Tornado Warning was issued for our city. The warning had stated that a large tornado had been reported in the town west of mind headed due east. Of course, the children quickly were frightened by the sound of the man's scary voice saying or town's name. Before, the children had time to stop sobbing, the power went off, and the cries were even louder. As the radio kept telling us the storm was moving nearer, I had that sick feeling in my stomach.

A few minutes later, our radio told us the storm was in our town and to take cover now. As we all lay on the cold floor, the sound of a freight train roared over head, the roof of my home was ripped off.

As the family screamed, I just yelled hold on. Just a few seconds later, it was over. The children were of course the first to stand up and we stand there not knowing what is next to come. Our radio's batteries have died and it is pitch black, rain soaking into the house.

That night we all slept in the side of the house that was still in tact. The next day, we see that half of the home is gone, and that we were just on the fringes of the side if the house that was in tact.

It took six months to clean up and rebuild and took 3 weeks for power to be restored after such a divesting F4 tornado didn't even hit my home head on, but went around us almost 1/4 mile and still ripped my home up. I still to this day, count my blessings, as there is no doubt in my mind, I could have died that night.

-Aaron McEachern

Katy, if I have any misspellings, I am very sorry. If you like you can fix the misspellings and make a few paragraps out of this if you publish it, whatever you like! Thanks for letting me tell my story!

Let me make a suggestion.

Call or contact the nearest National Weather Service Office. You can get the address and number by going to;

http://www.weather.gov/

and clicking on your location on the national map. This will bring up the local office responsible for your area. The contact information for the office is normally on the bottom of the home page. Contact the WCM (all offices have this position) which stands for Warnings and Coordination Meteorologist. WCM's are normally the severe weather experts for the office and do the storm investigations and assign the ratings to tornadoes and do the public outreach. All of the WCMs that I know would be very happy to assist you. A good number of these are also storm chasers in their off time and can assist you obtaining pictures and just about anything you want along the lines that you are asking.

Then you will have a local expert source for your article. And no, the WCM will not charge you for the interview or material, they are usually very happy to do things like that.

Last September (I think Sept. 12 to be exact) Hurricane Ike went over Houston. It was a Category 3 when it hit us. At the night of the hurricane, at about 9 P.M. the power went out, so we had to use candles and cards to keep us busy and lighted. We had to use the stoves and the oven to heat up our food, and anything left over was thrown away. We used all our flashlights to navigate around the house, and it was really creepy being in a house that dark. We were really hot because of the lack of AC. Of course, we boarded up the house and secured it the night before. We all slept in one bedroom with all doors and windows secured. But there was a bathroom in our bedroom with doors that kept swinging open slightly. We could hear rain splattering and wind gusting really hard. There were spots of lighting every 20 seconds. Some wind even drafted inside the house, granted the bathroom windows were open to cool us off.

The next morning was sunny, moist, and hot. Miraculously, nothing was damaged in our house except for the fences and tree branches. Our house was littered with leaves and branches, big and small, everywhere. Our pool had a huge stack of sunken branches and leaves at the bottom. We were all cleaning the house for at least 8 hours. It was hard, hot work. Our house smelled like something that makes me thing of a secluded tropical house for some reason. Our food was going bad. We had to deal with no power for a week. Thankfully, our neighbor had a generator and kindly offered to share a couple of lines, making our refrigerator, freezer, and computer work, but it still was hot and with no AC. I once slept over at a house who's power went back on after just 2 days. It was my mom's birthday when the power went back on. We didn't want to leave the house filled with AC after that.

1. Yes. Severe thunderstorm. It was my first EVER Tornado warning, and it scared the crap out of me. WORST FEELING EVER.

2.No, but I have videos. I have one uploaded on my youtube: ainsiee

but the severe storm that just happened the day before yesterday is what I'm gonna upload when I put all my videos and stuff on.

3. I'm not sure.

I was driving home from wal*mart one day and I knew that the sky wasn't looking right, such as spinning, and then the sirens came on... the tornado was right behind my car!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i got twirlled around in it and it sounded like 5 feight trains.. after it blew me like 1/2 a mile away the ambulance came and got me and all i had was a fractured arm!! I GOT SOO LUCKY!! BTW- it was an F3

answwer mine?

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Ar6rI...

yeah there was a terrible hailstorn last night! my car was battered!

ther severe weather was gone very quickly - no time for photoso

the severity was extremely mild. It is called 'gale force' wind