My near-tornado experience

Last night was a night to remember. Ryan had taken the kids up to Tulsa, and I was planning on doing some scrapbooking and taking advantage of the "alone time". Well, I was just getting ready to set up everything, and I noticed lightning and thunder going on outside. So I switched on the news, to see what was going to take place. It said that my town was under a tornado warning. A tornado WATCH is just where you are aware of the storm and keep an eye on the weather, and just be prepared to find shelter. A tornado WARNING is where you find shelter as quick as possible. Okay, I was expecting maybe a watch, but we were already in a warning, so I started panicking. Literally a few seconds after I noticed that we were in a warning, my mother-in-law, Sharon called and told me that we were in a warning and that I needed to find shelter. Luckily, I ran into one of my neighbors a few weeks ago on my road and he told me that he had a storm shelter, and that my family was welcome to use it, even if no one else was in it. So I knew that I could run to it. So I found a hooded jacket, and grabbed my cell phone and keys and locked my house up and headed across the road to the shelter. There was lightning crashing everywhere, that was scary enough. The rumble from the thunder was literally making car alarms go off. I could hear 2-3 alarms. And to top that off, the tornado sirens started blaring. So I was REALLY nervous. It wasn't even raining yet, it was actually peaceful, except for the lightning/thunder, car alarms and tornado sirens. Okay, maybe it wasn't really peaceful after all ;) I was in a panic mode, and got over to the neighbors house. I felt weird going in their cellar without them knowing. I knocked on their door, no one answered. I ran to their back door, knocked and no answer again. So I went ahead and ran to the storm cellar. There are no words to describe what is going on in your mind. You think that in a situation like that you would grab pictures, or keepsakes, but you don't even think of that when you are in a state of panic. I'm just glad I was able to get dressed and get over into shelter. My brain kind of went blank, because of the panic. Okay, so I opened the shelter door, it was heavy, and somehow when I was getting in, I hurt my hand by that door, don't know how it happened, but it did. I went down, and used the cell phone light to find a candle and lighter down there. I lit the candle, and sat down on one of the benches. I was expecting more people to show up, because he told me that any of the neighbors were welcome to use the shelter. But no one showed up. The sirens kept blaring for about 10 minutes. I called Ryan, my mom and mother-in-law to let them know I was in the shelter. They watched the news to keep me updated. After the sirens quit blaring, I waited for the rain to die down. I heard 2 rounds of hail, so I really wanted to wait until the weather died down. I was in the shelter for about 1 1/2 hours. Finally the rain slowed down and I ran back home. I was home for about 10 minutes and my electric went out. So I called my in-laws and asked if I could come stay the night at their house, and of course they said yes. So I jumped into my truck and headed up to their house across town. EVERYONE'S electric was out on my side of town. Even Main Street's lights were out. But luckily, my in-laws' side of town was fine. I got up to their house and turned on the news and watched the storm that had just left. It went DIRECTLY over my town, and it was a powerful one. I was very tired by this time, it was about 1:30 am and I went to bed, and slept great. It was definitely a night to remember.