Whew! That Was A Close One...

This past weekend was supposed to be one we'd look back on and remember Kaitlyn's cheer squad scoring 3rd place in her division. While this happened and we all went home excited with trophies and medals in hand, it was what happened after the event that we'll remember.

We had been in Oklahoma City for about a 100 team cheerleading competition. Teams from all over the midwest and midsouth converged on central Oklahoma for this annual event. We were one of 4 teams from the Northwest Arkansas region while many others came from Kansas, Missouri, Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas. We were fortunate in that we only had 3 hour drive home.

Many others had up to an 8 hour drive...and that was AFTER the last awards' ceremony at 10pm on Sunday night.

Yeah, I bet there were some either very tardy or very absent kids from some schools today.

Anyway, this two day event concluded for Kaitlyn at around 6pm Sunday night. I was aware that there were some potentially severe storms headed our way but we were under the impression they wouldn't be there until after 8pm or so.

As we left the arena and headed toward a restaurant on the east side of OKC, we noticed a lot of wind beginning to pick up and some pretty impressive lightning flashes. We wanted to get to around Midway City to at least be a few miles down the road before we stopped to eat. After an afternoon of arena corn dogs and pizza and stale diet Coke, a meal at the local Chili's seemed like a good deal.

I noticed the TV's inside Chili's were all tuned to local weather stations, showing some pretty colorful weather graphics. As anyone knows who watches storms progress on TV radar, the more yellows, reds, oranges and purples you see, the more severe the storms are. The entire screens were orange & red with a few swirling icons indicating possible tornadoes peppered on the TV map.

I asked our waitress if those storms were anywhere near us and she said she thought they were at least 30 miles away or so. While they still looked ominous, I thought we'd still have enough time to eat and be on our way before they hit our current position.

To quote ESPN College Gameday's Lee Corso..."not so fast my friend."

We'd just paid our bill and were exiting the restaurant when the Chili's manager stepped up to announce to the crowd eating inside that a few funnel clouds HAD been seen headed toward the Cox Center...the place where the cheerleading competition was still going on.

A quick look to Jennifer and the kids and I said "let's go...NOW."

I drove over to the local gas station to fill up while Jennifer took Jake to the bathroom. The wind had already begun to blow rather fiercely and the lightning was flashing a lot more often now when all of a sudden, as Jennifer and Jake emerged from the Quik Stop...

the tornado air sirens began to sound.

We quickly assessed the situation and decided to leave immediately and move quickly (ie: SPEED) down the interstate as fast as we could. Luckily the rains hadn't come yet and there wasn't much traffic (if any) on the highway. We were up to 80mph pretty quickly when we noticed a few cars passing us.

I wasn't going to jeopardize anyone's life as the updates on the radio said we were still well ahead of the possible tornado, albeit by about 15 miles or so.

The wind was blowing pretty good and the Sequoia was beginning to buffet back & forth as we sped down I-40. I noticed the once jovial voices of the kids were now very quiet and scared. So, I turned off the radios and DVD's to offer a prayer for God to protect us and all who remained in OKC and to get us home safely.

Thankfully, after about an hour of being blown around a bit, we left the storm to the rear of us but ran directly into another patch of rain in front of us. In fact, if you go to any map website and type in Checotah OK and follow it all the way to Ft Smith AR then north to Fayetteville, you'll know how long we drove through some pretty solid rain.

I'm so very grateful to the Lord for giving us His protection on the way home last night. From what I hear, everyone else made it home OK to, although it was quite a bit later.

However, after last night's tornadoes and heavy rains, Northwest Arkansas is buckling down for another big storm system.

This time...we could get hit with up to 10" of snow.

Yes, 10 inches of snow.

Already the kids are upstairs in bed together, giggling and planning their day's activities in the frozen precipitation in hopes of an almost guaranteed snow day.

To be honest, I'm kinda looking forward to it too.