It's been only two months since this happened.  I don't think I'll ever forget what happened to me that unforgettable night.

It had been threatening to rain just about all day.  Sure enough, early in the afternoon, on February 5, 2008, our area was placed under a tornado watch. 

This means conditions are right for tornadic development. 

I didn't really think too much about it:  I was too busy with school.  Storms don't scare me.  As far as tornadoes are concerned, this is Tennessee, not Texas or Oklahoma, where tornadoes are more apt to happen.

At 2:45 p.m., I got home from school.  Did my homework and chores, then headed out for the den, where I horsed around with my little brothers.

Mom threatened to bop our heads together because we were making so much noise.  We came up and had pizza for dinner. 

Yummo!!  No dishes to wash!!  No leftovers! Our family made sure of that! LOL

It rained off and on through the evening.  Nothing to get too worried about.  Just your general "garden-variety" showers, with a little thunder and lightning to make it interesting. 

Went to bed by nine.  Just started to get to sleep, when I heard mom's voice calling in the night.  She was telling us to get to the basement, as there were tornadoes heading this way.  Lightning was lighting up the sky to the west in frequent, vivid flashes, and you could hear the continual growl of thunder.  It sounded like these storms really meant business.

I got Trevor and Ethan up, herded them to the basement.  By now, I was shaking scared:  there is something about tornadoes that make a person turn into a quivering mess of fear.  I was growing terrified. 

I'd seen a tornado once before, when our family was in Oklahoma; I never dreamed I'd see one here in Tennessee.  Oh, I know Tennessee could get tornadoes, but they were rather rare (or so I thought).  I didn't think we'd get one in real life; now it looked like we were going to be faced with that possiblity.

About fifteen minutes later, we could hear the wind screaming outside.  It sounded like the tornado was right on top of us.  It was beyond scary.  Suddenly the power died, and I thought we were going to be toasted by the tornado.

That was the last thing I remembered before everything went black.

~End of part one.~