We had storms again on Friday evening. May in Oklahoma, it's kind of expected. But these came less than two weeks after a huge tornado devastated Moore, Oklahoma - which is only 10 miles from my house. Everyone in the area has been in kind of a "panic mode" since... so when the weather people told us that a tornado was heading towards Mustang, we made a mistake and left the house. Normally, I wouldn't say this was a mistake because most tornadic storms move in a northeastern direction and can be somewhat predictable in their path. This particular storm was west/northwest of our house when it flared up. I saw it on radar and said a prayer for people in Piedmont and Edmond because I assumed it would move in that direction. When the meteorologists put Mustang in the cross hairs (moving to the southeast), it really surprised me and my family.

My wife and I discussed it and decided to leave the house. We don't have a storm shelter, and were still raw from witnessing the death and destruction on May 20th in Moore, so we threw the family into our Suburban and headed for Hwy 4 which runs south towards Tuttle, Oklahoma. A problem quickly presented itself... pretty much everyone else in Mustang had the same idea! The highway, which is usually kind of sparsely used and has a 65mph speed limit, was crawling along in bumper to bumper traffic about 3mph. We jumped in the line and cranked the radio to listen to the storm's tracking pattern. Luckily, we left early enough to get out of the way. There were some definite prayers lifting as we sat stuck in our car (one of the absolute worst places to be during a tornado).

The bad thing is; I'm not sure if I learned a lesson or not. If a tornado came through the area today, I think I would pick up my family and run. I've lived in Oklahoma my whole life and I don't lead a life scared of the weather... but perhaps I need to write out some rules or something to follow so I don't make hasty situations in the heat of the moment.

With my next post, I'm going to take a look at some of my ideas and inspiration for John Decker. He's the main character in Angels Without Wings: Genesis of a Hero and is mentioned in Angels Without Wings: Scepter of Faith.