学进去

On the day the tornado hit, there was no indication severe weather was on its way—the sky was blue and the sun had been out. The first warning my husband, Jimmy and I got came around 9 p.m., from some scrolling text on the TV Jimmy was watching.

No sooner had we found coverage of the tornado than it was on top of us. I didn’t know how or if we would make it down the steps. It felt as if there were no floor underneath me as the wind lifted me off my feet. I gripped the banister(楼梯扶手) and tried to move forward, but this intense pressure held me in place. In those seconds of practical stillness, I could hear everything around me rattling.

We got close to the staircase landing only to hear the loud ripping（撕裂） sound of our garage door coming off. The back wall of the house followed suit and tore off into the darkness outside.

By the time I reached the closet, the tornado had been over us for about a minute. Jimmy pushed me down to the closet floor, but he couldn’t get inside himself because of the wind. I held Jimmy’s arm tightly as the tornado sucked the door open—we never did get it fully shut—and tried to bring Jimmy with it. My knees and head were full of glass, but in that moment, I felt no pain. If I had let go, Jimmy would have flown right out the back of the house and into the bay.

“Hold on! Hold on!” he yelled. But there was nothing in this closet to hold on to. All of a sudden, Jimmy lifted off his feet like people in tornadoes do in the movies. I thought he was gone. And then everything stopped. He landed on his feet. In those first quiet moments, I couldn’t believe it was over. Jimmy said he’d go outside to check. “No,” I said. “Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me.”