Monday, July 22, 2013

A Tornado Alley Tale

My friend Terry and I were having drinks after work when he recounted a tornado story that he'd experienced during the 1973 Union City tornado.

Terry was still a cop at the time and sent to help shortly after the big tornado. He found a man standing outside the ruined shell of what had recently been his house. Those of you that have experienced tornadoes know they often leave certain things completely untouched amid massive destruction. A coffee table remained in the spot that had been the man’s living room, not even an hour before. The telephone sat on the coffee table, undisturbed by the storm. As Terry talked with the home owner, the phone rang.

Terry watched as the man carried on a short conversation with someone. After hanging up, he walked back to where Terry waited.

“That was strange,” he said. “It was a man calling from Moore. He was standing in his front yard a few minutes ago when my TV Guide dropped out of the sky in front of him. Just before the storm, it was sitting on that coffee table beside the phone.”

Moore is a town about thirty miles east of Union City. The magazine wasn’t even wet.

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