Tornado Shelter

“I’m going to run and pick up Garrett from the airport. Be right back.”

These were my parting words to Mom as I headed to the Omaha Airport for the third time in 24 hours. The event requiring so much air travel was our family reunion. My husband, Garrett, was the last to fly in and join the kick-off festivities at our downtown Omaha hotel. 

Having flown in earlier in the week, I had a rental car and had become the airport taxi. Enjoying the CarPlay feature on my newer model rental, I had become accustomed to the live navigation alerts. This perfect sync to my iPhone was a feature I didn’t enjoy in my car back home.

I started the ignition for what I thought was another quick drive to the airport. This time, my rental car shared a weather alert.

“There is a tornado warning 12.3 miles from your location,” blurted the monotone voice from my car speaker.

Growing up in the Midwest, the threat of a tornado was nothing new.

12 miles away? No problem. I shrugged off the storm, expecting it to blow over quickly. Ignoring the threatening clouds, I pulled into the waiting car lot outside the airport.

Our airport routine is for the plane passenger to text “Landed” to the car driver when the wheels touch the ground. This avoids trouble with airport security for lingering too long in the busy pick-up lanes.

The Omaha Airport is in the middle of a big construction project, with pickup diverted to the parking garage. Aware of this added hassle, I was more than comfortable hanging out in open space far from the pickup area.

Then my car warned me again.

“There is a tornado warning 6.1 miles from your location.”

Well, that makes sense, I thought. I drove about 6 miles to the airport from the reunion hotel. Getting out of the car, I could smell a familiar dampness in the air. Although blue skies still lingered close by, dark skies filled my view from the other side. I knew these clouds would blow in at any moment.

Growing up in Iowa, I had a deep education in reading clouds and interpreting the weather. As a child, I welcomed the storms that delayed fieldwork. My attitude reversed with storm-delayed ball games and summer play. Dependent on my longing, I would look up at the sky, wishing for the dark clouds to either stay or go.

But when the sirens sounded, I always wanted the storms to end.

There was no storm chasing in my family. The same aunts and uncles now sipping happy hour drinks at the family reunion once pulled open the cellar door to the tornado shelter on my grandparents’ farm. This heavy door was rarely noticed until there was a tornado sighting. We would scurry into the damp, tight space under the farmhouse to take shelter as the wind whipped outside.

Our farm dog, Sadie, was terrified of thunderstorms. Although an outside dog, she would flee into the house and hide under the couch when a storm hit. I would worry about her as I sat huddled in the basement, envisioning a Toto scene from the Wizard of Oz happening above us.

Tornado warnings at my family’s home in town were equally as scary. They were frequent in the summer months and required us to go outside to seek shelter. Our underground cellar was only accessible from an outside door. Other than for tornado escapes, it was storage for Mom’s summer canning and shelves of unused paints and old household items.

My memories are of our town’s storm sirens going off in the middle of the night. Our parents would wake my older brothers and me, with Dad carrying me into the dark basement. With my nightgown soaked from the thrashing rain, we would huddle around a transistor radio, listening for updates.

We lived in a world without text messaging to communicate the safety of finding shelter, and we certainly didn’t have a car reminding us of impending danger.

“You are now in a tornado warning area. Seek shelter.”

I listened to the warning while looking up at the sliver of the remaining blue sky and noticing no airplanes taking off or landing. Then, while typing a search on Google for current airplane activity at the airport, it began to hail.

That got my attention. I didn't want damage to the rental car. As I raced for the airport parking garage, the sky opened up into torrential rain. Taking a spot in the garage, the text from Garrett finally came through.

“Landed.”

Then, immediately followed by, “Won’t let us off the plane until tornado warning passes.”

A knock at my car window startled me. Ready to explain that my husband was stuck on a plane, airport security cut me off and directed me to the garage tornado shelter. I followed the mass of drivers walking to our designated evacuation spot.

Instead of my tornado shelters of the 70s, surrounded by dirt walls and stacks of canned vegetables, my 2024 tornado shelter surroundings were the pinging of cell phones in a cramped cement stairwell. A man on the stairs turned his phone to share a live video feed.

“Oh, my God. My wife is taping a tornado outside the airport! It is happening right now.”

The little boy beside me began to cry as his father explained that he was scared for his mother on the plane. We then quickly followed Mr. Rogers's advice and became the good people in a scary situation.

“Everything is fine now,” the lady beside me calmly piped up.

The man with the video put his phone away while another person in the crowd shared that today was his birthday. We spent the next few minutes singing jubilant happy birthday wishes while the little boy held his dad’s hand and stopped crying.

Soon, we were allowed back to our cars. Another tornado warning followed, with the airplane remaining on the tarmac for another hour. During this time, my phone was blowing up with texts from various people outside asking if I was okay.

I had thought I had only told my mom I was running to the airport, so I was confused about the attention. Later, I discovered that tornados had hit the Omaha area hard. Houses were flattened, and people were injured. It was all over the national news.

After two hours on the tarmac watching the storm from a grounded airplane, Garrett joined me in the car. In his typical calm fashion, he shared that it wasn’t so bad. The flight crew handled it well, and the tornado wasn’t as near the airplane as it appeared on video.

Finally arriving at the family reunion, we found the hotel inhabited by storm chaser show crews. Televisions were broadcasting the devastation in other parts of the city.

Many of my family members didn’t know about the tornados, as the reunion festivities continued without missing a beat. Their shelter of the hotel lobby, unbeknownst to them, was a far cry from the farm cellar of my youth.

The next morning, the Omaha newspaper recounted the airport tornado spotting. The perspective was from a lady on Garrett’s plane with the headline, “I was Praying.”

As Garrett read the story, he agreed to the main points of record but with less bravado than depicted. Noting that he was on the other side of the plane from the tornado view, he thought some extra drama was added to beef up the story for the reader.

You can’t blame the writer. Everyone loves a good story. But as for me, I’m just grateful for the shelter.

News story from Garrett’s plane