Udall Truck Up a Tree, 1955
The little town of Udall, Kansas was nearly leveled completely by a tornado on May 25, 1955. Over 200 people were injured and 80 people were killed. Udall was a town of 500 and was near Wichita where we lived. I remember everyone talking about this storm and others that had hit in Oklahoma that evening.
Photos from the Kansas Historical Society
Well, the very next evening the warning for severe storms was issued and later the sirens went off in Wichita while I was at an end of school party. The adults decided that we should all go home.
Someone took me home and I vividly recall them dropping me off at 
our Holyoke Street house. Usually, a driver would wait to make sure I got in the house safely but that night they had others to deliver and drove off. I can still picture our house with all the lights on inside but not a soul was there. By now the sirens were going off and I started to cry!! I don’t remember whether I had sense enough to go to the basement, but I just recall that feeling of helplessness and wishing my parents were home. Though there was a huge noisy thunderstorm with lots of wind, no tornado touched down near us. To this day I still get very anxious whenever a “chance of severe weather with possible tornados” is given.
Fortunately I have never been where a tornado struck but hurricanes are another story. When we moved to North Carolina, I was pretty much oblivious to hurricane warnings. That changed quickly in September of 1996. As I was leaving Apex Middle School, where I was teaching 6th grade, a teacher friend told me to take any work that I needed to do because there was a chance we would miss a day or two of school due to Hurricane Fran, which was approaching the Carolina coast. That day or two turned into twelve days after Wilmington, North Carolina took a direct hit when Fran came on the coast and traveled right up to Raleigh/Cary/Apex area.
At the time I was very naive about the danger and also the preparation hurricanes required. We had just moved from Green Bay in June, been on a previously planned sailing trip to the Caribbean, been in California for my brother Jim’s funeral, and only lived in our new home a few weeks, certainly not long enough to meet any of our neighbors. To make things even more difficult, Paul was on a business trip to Europe. Anyway, hurricane warnings were out for coastal NC near Wilmington, but none had been issued for the Raleigh area. A friend picked me up for a book club meeting at the country club very close to our home.
As we sat casually drinking wine and talking about the book, our waiter came to the table to explain the situation. Hurricane Fran was headed our way: tree limbs were already falling, wind was blowing and the rains had begun. We quickly jumped in our cars and headed home. Me to a dreaded empty house. I then began preparing for a scary night. We had no basement, so I decided the safest place was in our bedroom closet with no windows. I took blankets, pillows, water, snacks, Porgy and Bess (our cats), the Sony Walkman, flashlight, portable radio and reluctantly made myself comfortable in our not very spacious closet.
I watched the weatherman on the portable TV until the station was knocked off the air at about 10:30. Sometime near midnight, the power went out, which meant no AC. I could hear our palladium window in the bedroom creaking, things falling on the roof and hitting the windows, and howling wind. I might have slept a bit but around 4:30 am, the closet became unbearably hot, so the cats and I braved it and left the closet. I laid down on the bed not caring by then whether the window shattered or not. I slept for awhile as there was nothing else to do with no power.
Around 9 am when the wind died down, I got brave and went outside. OMG, there were tree limbs down, whole trees uprooted, our house was covered with leaves and looked like a leaf house. A few neighbors were out walking around. There were no cell phones back then, so I could not communicate with family, friends or Paul. Power did not come back on for three days. I managed to get my garage door open by hand and drive up to the Kroger store to use the pay phone. While standing in a long line, I exchanged stories with others from the area. I was able to call my parents in Wichita and assure them I was safe. They then called other family members and friends. Paul, still on business in Europe, eventually heard about the storm and called my dad who told him I was safe. We were out of school for eight or nine days as there was so much cleanup to be done. Whew!!
After Fran, we experienced two more hurricanes while living in Oriental, NC, which is nearer the coast. One of them caused extensive flooding for everyone. We had water in our garage and backroom. The other one was a bit more scary as we had two big pine trees go down, one on our garage roof.
I still find myself becoming anxious when there are storms predicted, and especially so when a storm warning is issued. The memory of seeing the devastation in Udall, Kansas, still haunts me.
