Friday, March 02, 2007

Bad Weather All the Way Around

Well, yesterday was a really bad day in America for weather as you all probably already know by now. So far there are 20 dead as tornadoes hit Ga., Ala., Mo. My heart goes out to those whose family members and friends were killed yesterday. Being a parent, I am really upset about the deaths at the high school in Enterprise. (I hope the revgalblogpals in that area are okay, like Cathy knits, 1-4 Grace).

I had gone to a workshop in Birmingham on Dealing with Conflict in the church. I almost turned around in Muscle Shoals because the weather was so bad. As I listened to the radio, and heard that schools were closing I called Bob and asked about the girls. He said he hadn't heard anything. I went on, and the weather broke to no rain, no wind. Got to the Conference Center which is on Birmingham Southern Campus. Everybody's anxiety was up about the weather. (Some of the news weather men tend to over do it sometimes.) Schools were closing, the tv and radio was predicting really bad thunderstorms and tornadoes. We went on with the workshop and broke for lunch. One of the guys got off the phone and told us that they were predicting the storms would hit Bham by 2:30pm. I added up the hours and decided to head home, it takes about 2 hours or more to get home. So I left and called Bob to let him know I was headed home, and to find out about the girls. He said the schools still had not closed. Well, when I got home and the kids got home, we found out they had spent 2 hours in the basement during all the warnings and did basically nothing. Yep, how can you teach scared little kindergartners? You don't, you just try to keep them calm. When I found out about that, I called the Principal who said it was the call of the Superintendent, and I could call her, which I did. I was furious, that they knew ahead of time that the National Weather Center in Norman had issued a severe weather alert with the possibilities of 50 tornadoes nation wide. It is an alert that they don't make flippantly, it has meaning and purpose. The county schools and other just didn't have school. Their excuse was getting the kids on the buses and home. They could have done what the county schools did and had no school. I understand about the bus situation.

Well, right after that we learned about the Enterprise situation. I was even madder with our Superindentent. What if that had been our kids? It was somebody's kids. I predict legislation out of this. I predict an uprising from parents, and I may be one of them. In little ole Wadley they canceled schools if there were tornado alerts. I wonder how many more calls the Superindent got? I think I will be at the next school board meeting.

My prayers go out for parent, the teens, teachers, family members of the kids killed in Enterprise, and to those elsewhere.

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