“I was leaving Lawton, Oklahoma from my court hearings during the day and I was driving down I-44. I saw one car pull off to the side and flash its hazards and then a few minutes later another pull over and then after another few minutes I noticed 15-20 cars pulled over. I kept driving, since the skies weren’t that dark. They were just sort of a heavy blue.
“When I reached the toll booth on I-44 there were about 300 cars off to the right side of the road and no cars were coming from the direction of the city of Newcastle where I was headed. Three ladies ran out in front of my car and motioned for me to pull over and stopped. I did and got out of the car to talk to them. They said a tornado had just passed through.
“By this point the wind was whipping up a storm and we were trying to listen to car radios and talk to our families on our phones. But then the wind suddenly died and the air went still and no sounds at all, then it hit.
“Apparently we’d been mistaken the tornado was only just reaching Newcastle since it was a mile wide with an added mile of a debris cloud. The reason we couldn’t see the funnel cloud was because it was two miles wide and stretched across the horizon like a black fog. Then we started seeing the lightning sparks from the power lines being ripped asunder. After that cars and house debris started appearing in the swirling storm.
“Those of us just watched in silent horror on the road. The woman next to me fainted and fell onto the grass in the ditch next to my car. No one thought to get our phones out. We all just stood there, frozen in horror and fascination. It took 10 minutes to pass the highway and then headed straight for Moore.
“My cell phone wasn’t able to get calls through or receive any communications and we all started driving again down I-44, not yet aware of the devastation we were about to see.
“We drove straight into Newcastle. Houses were flattened, farms destroyed, cars everywhere. State Troopers were on the scene, and I-44 was completely shut down. The troopers ordered everyone to stay put in Newcastle or turn around.
“I was trying to make it back to Tulsa and was told flat out that the storm cell was heading straight there and no one was allowed to go that way. So I drove in circles before parking in a shut down Lowes parking lot along with about 200 other cars. We were all just talking and watching the tornado slowly move towards through Moore and praying as we listened on the radio as it wiped out school after school in Moore.
“After an hour I was able to get back in my car and the troopers had worked out an alternate route back to Tulsa that would go far south of the storm systems.
“All said and done…I was in the car for more than 8 hours today…and if I hadn’t stopped for gas about 20 minutes before I hit Newcastle, I would have driven straight onto I-44 as the tornado swept across it….god knows what would have been my fate in that case.”
THIS FUCKING THIS
B
HOLY FUCK! SO FUCKING TRUE!
I need to tell myself this more often. I tend to sink into an anxiety spiral when I start getting depressed, especially about being trans. I look at my life and think, I have a boyfriend and a roof over my head… A job, friends and family who love me, and the funds for my surgery in my pocket. I don’t have a right to be depressed because my life is so much better than a lot of other trans girls out there. I shouldn’t have anything to complain about.
So I feel petty and sad … For BEING SAD.
