I remember telling dad that I wished I could see a tornado and boy that was the wrong thing to say. He jumped all over me as if I saw one it might mean that someone around us was going to be hurt. Of course I never considered the consequences of seeing one but I sure loved watching those storms roll across the prairie of the Osage.
I am sure many of you have watched the sky boil searching for a funnel cloud. The amazing thing was the weathermen did not know where a tornado was forming and there certainly were no storm chasers. I do believe that when farmers hear there is a tornado coming they step outside and look up rather than go hide. Storm watching was great fun to me and I loved feeling the change in temperature and the winds surging down on us as the front rolled in. The open prairie allowed you to get a great view for many miles of what was coming and of course mom and dad listened to the weathermen while we sat on the porch and watched. Sure enough as soon as they thought it was close we would head for the cellar. If you don't remember we had an underground cellar made of bricks where we stored the potatoes and other canned goods for food during the winter. Maybe I just don't remember but I don't recall worrying about black widow spiders and brown recluse spiders or snakes in the cellar. Our biggest worry was that the potatoes were strung across the floor of the cellar to dry out and stay preserved for eating later in the winter months. We had to move them around to get in the cellar as there were hundreds and hundreds of pounds of potatoes in the cellar.
There were only two tornadoes that I remember hitting a house and one was on a hill going to Pawhuska where a house was completely wiped out and the other was one that hit by Tanny and Nanny Olsen's house. We went over to Tanny's house and it was absolutely amazing. Tanny and Nanny (yes that is their names) sat in their chairs in what was a walkout basement or room in their house and watched as the tornado came down the creek toward the house (west to east). The tornado picked up one barn and literally threw it across the creek where it was smashed up against the trees. Next it came to a barn filled with wheat and it sucked all the wheat out of the barn while picking up the barn and sitting it back down on the foundation but turned on its foundation about a foot or two. As I recall there was another barn that was emptied of corn or some grain but it was a round metal grainary which was not damaged at all. Then the tornado came toward the house where it jumped over the house with zero damage and went up on the hill by the stock pens and across the prairie.
Anyway if you don't know it Debbie, my sister, and her son Richard Crow build storm cellars for above and below ground. The name of their company is Ground Zero out of Perry, Oklahoma. Yes, that is a plug for them.
I think I could have been a storm chaser had we had the technology in the "good old days".
So what do you learn in the Osage?
I am sure many of you have watched the sky boil searching for a funnel cloud. The amazing thing was the weathermen did not know where a tornado was forming and there certainly were no storm chasers. I do believe that when farmers hear there is a tornado coming they step outside and look up rather than go hide. Storm watching was great fun to me and I loved feeling the change in temperature and the winds surging down on us as the front rolled in. The open prairie allowed you to get a great view for many miles of what was coming and of course mom and dad listened to the weathermen while we sat on the porch and watched. Sure enough as soon as they thought it was close we would head for the cellar. If you don't remember we had an underground cellar made of bricks where we stored the potatoes and other canned goods for food during the winter. Maybe I just don't remember but I don't recall worrying about black widow spiders and brown recluse spiders or snakes in the cellar. Our biggest worry was that the potatoes were strung across the floor of the cellar to dry out and stay preserved for eating later in the winter months. We had to move them around to get in the cellar as there were hundreds and hundreds of pounds of potatoes in the cellar.
There were only two tornadoes that I remember hitting a house and one was on a hill going to Pawhuska where a house was completely wiped out and the other was one that hit by Tanny and Nanny Olsen's house. We went over to Tanny's house and it was absolutely amazing. Tanny and Nanny (yes that is their names) sat in their chairs in what was a walkout basement or room in their house and watched as the tornado came down the creek toward the house (west to east). The tornado picked up one barn and literally threw it across the creek where it was smashed up against the trees. Next it came to a barn filled with wheat and it sucked all the wheat out of the barn while picking up the barn and sitting it back down on the foundation but turned on its foundation about a foot or two. As I recall there was another barn that was emptied of corn or some grain but it was a round metal grainary which was not damaged at all. Then the tornado came toward the house where it jumped over the house with zero damage and went up on the hill by the stock pens and across the prairie.
Anyway if you don't know it Debbie, my sister, and her son Richard Crow build storm cellars for above and below ground. The name of their company is Ground Zero out of Perry, Oklahoma. Yes, that is a plug for them.
I think I could have been a storm chaser had we had the technology in the "good old days".
So what do you learn in the Osage?
- One person's beauty is another person's disaster
- The furry of a storm/torando is preceeded by a beauty all its own
- I learned to take with me in life good memories and to discard the bad
Thanks for your time,
gary@thepioneerman.com
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