Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Happy to be alive

I have been cribbing about work and all other problems. Today, I'm just thankful I'm alive and safe. What made me so grateful?

A tornado hit our area last night. My labmate and I were on the road when her fiance called and warned us that a tornado warning has been issued for our area. We were still about 15 minutes away from home. We were really scared because there was hardly any place to take shelter on either side of the road. The frequency of lightning and amount of rain kept increasing as we kept getting closer to our town. I don't know how I managed to keep driving with minimum visibility, hail hitting our car and a very shaky leg :) Finally we found a office to take shelter in. The care taker of the office was really nice, let us and few others in. We were sitting in their basement listening to the radio until the storm passed by. Some reports say that it touched down lightly just about a mile from where we were! No major harm done. Some uprooted trees and light posts and power failure in some areas. We came back home but the siren kept going on for another hour and news reporters kept telling that there might be another one coming. I was really scared all night. Was sitting in the middle of the house away from the windows and calling my friends and family. Went to sleep thinking that I might wake up in a different place :p

Fortunately I woke up in the same place :)

I am happy today to be not blown away and really grateful that no one was harmed.

And among all this, a dear friend, who has been like my elder sister since the day I arrived in this alien place, gave birth to a beautiful baby girl!!

Life is strange but not bad :)

5 comments:

Solitaire said...

Yeah!! I know what you are talking about!

The weather really really sucked!!

But all's well that ends well!

Ankur said...

:O

tornedos bahut aate hai US mai and still ppl say its safest!!! :P

waise nice to knw u doing alright!!!
and wish that baby good health and happy life...

Cheers!!!

Smokin Joe said...

i agree.. at the end of the day, what matters is being alive.. and nothing else.. and then u thank god for that ;-)

P said...

@ Solitaire: Very true. All the scary images from last month's killer tornadoes kept flashing in my mind. I feel so lucky that it wasn't that bad here.

@ Ankur: Yes. This year has seen quite a lot of them..some very damaging ones too.
No place in the world is safe from natural calamities, but I can say that they try their very best to warn in advance and keep people safe here. Instructions of what to do in any kind of emergency are distributed regularly and posted everywhere. The police and media are extremely helpful too.

@ Smoking joe: Yes. And I also thank all the people who warned us and gave us shelter :)

Pavi!!!! said...

Ahh Woodtouch! Thats the thing abt nature...one has no control over it! It does wat it must n the leaves!