Go Ahead...Tell Me I Over-react

Yesterday afternoon I was starting dinner. The weather had been a little goofy all day, rain on and off, mostly sprinkling. It seemed a little humid, but never hot.

Shortly after 3:30, I thought I heard a siren outside. I opened up the door and listened, and it was the tornado siren. Joe and Alex were both back in their bedrooms, so I went back there and told them that we were going to the basement. I told them to gather up the cats and get downstairs. I needed to go turn off the burners on the stove and put a few things back in the refrigerator.

Suddenly, I felt my "teacher-mode" kick in. I stood at the door to the basement, telling them to get moving, making sure that I would be the last one down there.

(Our basement is not an "ordinary" basement. We have 10 rooms of varying size down there and all the amenities of the main floor, except for a computer, so it's not like we were heading to a dungeon or anything.)

Joe couldn't find Marina. Oliver and Pepina were down there with Alex. We tried to get her out of hiding by opening up the refrigerator and pulling out the drawer where we keep lunch meat. She begs for turkey on an hourly basis, and whenever she hears that drawer open, she comes running. However, this time, she stayed hidden. I just told Joe that it was doubtful that anything would happen, so we were going down without her.

After we get down there, I turned on the TV on to watch the Weather Channel. They said that we were under a tornado warning until 4:00. So we stayed there until 4:00, even though we could see out the windows and there was no rain or wind.

When Ted got home from work, shortly after we came upstairs, I asked him where he was during the sirens. "Heading back to the shop."

So was I the only one taking this seriously?

A little after 6:00, the weather was getting nasty, and the sirens started again. Alex was over at Aunt Patty and Uncle Tim's house with some other people. I texted him and asked if they were inside. He said that they were all in the garage with the garage door closed. I strongly suggested that they at least go inside. He texted back, "I'm fine."

I mentioned to Ted that maybe we should go downstairs...he said we were okay on the main floor. They kept breaking in for emergency messages on TV. The Weather Channel even mentioned us by name (I just love Jim Cantore.)

So again, was I the only one taking this seriously?

Or was I over-reacting?

My mom called later on and asked me, in a teasing way, if we had come up from the basement yet.

Our local newspaper does a poll every day. I wish they would poll their readers, asking how many went to their basements during yesterday's tornado warnings.

And for the record, when we came back upstairs earlier, Marina came out of hiding and was sitting on the kitchen floor.