Thursday, April 24, 2008

So THAT's why we all have basements

I was just hanging out in the kitchen munching on some bread and getting ready to do a little baking. I heard this faint siren sound somewhere outside and it reminded me of growing up in Netarts with the weekly siren for the volunteer fire fighters. The siren would go off and all the dogs in the neighborhood would start barking and my grandparent's dog would come racing up the street and dive under our porch, cowering and trembling in fear. Ah memories.

My reverie was interrupted as Meg came bounding down the back stairs and knocked on the door. She poked her head in and told me they were all heading down to the basement because of the tornado siren. What!?!? That's a warning siren for tornadoes!?! What!?! No way!! I grabbed a sweater and some shoes and clomped down to the basement to hang out with Meg and Claire, who is home sick.

The siren ended shortly after that so we all returned to our warm apartments.

So that explains why every house around here has a basement...

2 comments:

Jed Carosaari said...

Cool!

I remember my first tornado warning. It was while I lived in Michigan. It went from watch to warning, and I rented out a room on the top floor from this Lebanese family. I went downstairs, and they were just hanging out. They knew about the warning, but it wasn't a big deal, even if the TV was saying to go down, they didn't much care. They said I was welcome to go down to the basement, and eventually they came down to hang out with me.

Reminded me of how we treat earthquakes in LA. If it's less than a 5, you go about your business, and don't even pay attention. If it's above a 6 then you get under a table. Only response is you take bets on the richter magnitude after the quake.

Aimee said...

ah natural disasters. I guess it helps if we keep a sense of humor about them or we'd be freaked out all the time!

Turns out our siren was just a statewide drill - which was apparently not advertised well so no one knew about it! Smart.