A Dizzy In The Lizzy

At ease, soldier.

(04/22/2003; 11:20am) - At ease, soldier.

Just as quickly as it developed, the whirlwind was over.

There was no permanant damage to the town; the twister ripped through a cornfield and terrified the residents of the peaceful town, but when it died out everybody was safe and sound. Old Man McDermott's tractor was found on its side. Helen Tempey's henhouse was more or less dismantled, blown away into the wind, but her hens were found together, clustered near her grain silo. And the Lansbury family farm lost power for a couple of days. But that was the extent of the physical damage: hardly anything worth noting. The community as a whole is a little more wary, a little more attuned to the changing winds, but safe. And that's the important part.

Life in the sleepy town will go on as it did before, everyone will go about their daily business and try recover from the terror they experienced. Needless to say, there's no way to forget about the blackness of the storm; to do so would be foolhardy. It's simply a matter of watching the skies carefully and being able to predict when something like this will happen again so that it may be avoided. Anyone caught in a storm like that has only himself to blame.

"Once bitten, twice shy." I stopped a farmer as he passed through town to get his take on the storm. "We got lucky this time."

He hunched over the steering wheel of his old truck and looked off towards the horizon, towards the gathering clouds.

"We got lucky."