…here I is in Texas still.  Just a little something I saw once on a postcard. Now that March is here, it feels like Spring. I love spring, but it is tornado season. That’s always kind of scary to me. I once lived in Granger, Texas, which is down by Austin. The day was strangely quiet and the color of the sky was a bit yellow.  I had to go to Georgetown to pay my phone bill . As usual , I had the radio blaring country western music when suddenly, the National Weather Service broke in with  a tornado warning.  Nervous, I sped up to get to Georgetown , pay my phone bill and get home. The sky was turning a greenish yellow color and I knew this couldn’t be good.

Granger is so small , there are no sirens or warnings. Shoot, there are hardly any flashing red lights on the streets to stop traffic. So the only real way we knew that anything was amiss would be from the television news (if the tv was able to get a signal) or from the radio.

Suddenly, we heard the news that Jarrell was hit. A huge tornado had hit Jarrell.

An F-5 tornado, she killed 29 people in Jarrell and the town itself was , for all intents and purposes , gone.Livestock had been killed, people had been killed, house torn down and a town disappeared with a huff and puff of a great natural disaster; a tornado.

 I had only been this close to a tornado  once before… but I was a  baby and have no recollection.  From what I hear, that tornado was very damaging to Dallas, but nothing like the Jarrell tornado.

Since I moved back to Dallas (another story in itself), I am afraid I have not kept up with Jarrell. I do think of it from time to time. But, it  was horrendous and not a time I really want to remember. I’m sure the residents of Jarrell don’t either. Unfortunately , it is now a part of their history and with it are reminders of what was.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1997_Central_Texas_tornado_outbreak

http://www.spc.noaa.gov/coolimg/jarrell/index.html