Eleven-year-old Ben worked in his room and probably sneaked in some reading, while Katy and I worked in hers, attempting to contain her many collections into the smallest room in the house. Clouds loomed, no rain yet. Disk jockey Steve Dahl reported that there was some weather coming in from the west. He made fun of how alarmist meteorologists and their weather-spotters get lathered up every time the sky darkens for a few minutes. He scoffed at a report that cars were turned over near I-55 in Plainfield.
The phone rang and I ran downstairs to answer it. “Carolyn, this is Pat Henry. Is David home?”
That was weird. Pat was a consultant David worked with on some of his architectural projects. Certainly he should know that he’d be at the office at 3:30p.m. Why would he call here?
“No, Pat,” I said, “I’m sure you can get him at the office.”
“Sure, okay,” he said. “I’ll do that.” And then he said nothing more.
“So, okay,” I prompted. “Good to talk to you.”
“Right,” he said, “Same here.”
A minute later I was fully absorbed in the back to school project, and for the next hour traveled between the two bedrooms, the laundry room, and the big garbage can in the garage. I was trying to fit yet another box of crucially important belongings under Katy’s bed when the phone rang again.
It was David, husband and father to us three. “Hi.” His voice sounded a little husky. “I’m okay.”
“Good,” I replied. ‘I’m glad. Me too. We’ve just about got…”
“You haven’t heard anything, have you?” he said.
“No, what?”
“I was in a tornado. In Plainfield. The building came down around us,” he said.
“Wait, what?” I started to sneak away from the kids until I could take this in. “You were what?”
“Turn on the TV. You’ll see.” He proceeded to tell me a few details. He and his partner Cliff had been meeting with a group of teachers in the school administration building when it hit. The teachers had the wit to dive under the tables. He and Cliff stood up and tried to walk out into the hallway. They were blown back into the room. David clutched the door frame until it blew away and he was down. He watched concrete blocks swirl above his head like popcorn. When it was over, they stood up to find the building around their knees. They looked straight up to see the sky filled with lightning and pouring rain.
First, they helped the teachers to safety to wait for help for their broken bones, then stopped to attend a man also waiting for emergency help. They gradually realized that the reason he wasn’t moving was that he was impaled on a plank of wood. He survived.
Once they reached the periphery, they looked back to see the high school on fire, missing its roof, a disaster scene. The building they’d been in was the pile of rubble over there. Cliff’s car sat atop a pile of cars at the edge of the lot, its emergency flashers blinking on and off.
With no car, no phone service and loved ones to check on – Cliff’s son was supposed to be at the town pool– they headed to Cliff’s father’s office on a nearby busy street. His dad, the town doctor, knew nothing since his office windows faced away from the route of the storm. He took off for the hospital for emergency duty that would last into the night. Several phone calls later, Cliff located his son, and David made the call to me.
“Should I come and get you?” I asked.
“You’d never get near here. Cliff’s going to borrow a car. He’ll drop me off.”
You know how kids are with their radar for trouble. While I was trying to play it cool and not alarm them, Ben and Katy hovered to hear the whole story. I hung up and chose my words.
“Okay,” I said. “Dad’s fine, but he and Cliff were in a tornado. In Plainfield. He’ll be here.”
I turned off the radio while Steve Dahl apologized for his earlier dismissal as reports of the severe damage and loss of life – 29 in total we eventually learned, 3 at the school complex – came in. We switched to TV but there wasn’t much to see yet, and we already knew the most important thing – David was coming home.
I tried to reinstate normalcy in the house. We resumed our project, and ran back to the TV when there was a new report. Each of us began to take in the enormity of it – this could have been the worst day of our lives, and it wasn’t. I began to formulate my apology to Ben who tried to tell us that this might happen. To his credit, he never demanded it.
Katy spotted David first. “Dad’s coming up the walk and he looks terrible!”
Sure, he was covered with dust, his glasses were wrecked, his face was cut, but here he came. I had to disagree. He looked pretty good to me.
A whirlwind of another kind followed. After telling the story and answering all our questions, he gobbled a sandwich, and went to Lenscrafters where they beat their new-glasses-in-one-hour promise, and he could see again. I went along when he headed for Plainfield and Joliet to help figure out how to start a school year with 1200 students and no building.
The next night was our 20th anniversary. We spent it at an emergency school board meeting, which was more romantic than it sounds. In the past 20 years, much has changed – the kids are on their own, years of new events have layered over the memory of the tornado. But when he shows up every night, or calls me during the day, there is something that still remains of that day, a whiff of gratitude, and recognition of what might have been.
CBY 07/10
