Thanks for all your kind thoughts, concerns and excellent advice.
I just got back from my writer's group down in Connecticut. And it turns out it was NOT an F-1 .... IT WAS AN F-3!!
It picked up a car and hurled it across a parking lot. It collapsed whole houses. It ripped off roofs and ripped brick walls to pieces, sendiig the bricks flying everywhere. It sent hundreds of trees to their deaths. Thousands of people are without power in and around Sringfield (not me -- lucky duck and nothing more). Every highway ramp into the city of Springfield is now closed. (I drove back up I-91 from Connecticut on my way home from my writer's group, and the standard giant highway warning sign which allows the DoT to flash really lengthy messages said: "ALL RAMPS INTO SPRIGFIELD CLOSED." And if I recall correctly, there are 7 ramps total that exit off of I-91 into Springfield. I quite fortunately didn't need to use any of the Springfield exits to get home because I live across the river in Agawam.)
My cell phone isn't working, it has zero bars (I guess the towers are all down).
There are over 2 dozen reported injuries and we are waiting on confirmation of one fatality.
I swear you guys, I almost drove across the river into downtown Sprngfield this afternoon so that I could run off printer copies at the Fed-Ex/Kinko's store on Main Street in Springfield, right near the Springfield City Hall. I needed to make copies of my manuscript to share tonight at my writer's group, but my printer isn't working so I needed to go to Kinko's. My writer's group always meets at 6:00, so I wanted to be in downtown Springfield (just across the river from me) before 4:30 to run off my copies. Then I would head into Connecticut, have a Pink-Slime burger at McDonald's, then head to my writer's group. But I was just running so darned late tonight!! It was already 4:25 and I still wasn't quite ready to go. I was very annoyed with myself. I was ALMOST out the door at about 4:35 when I noticed all the trees outside my window were whipping super-hard and super-fast, side-to-side with really violent force due to the wind. I've never seen those trees whip so hard. (I don't think I've ever seen ANY trees whip so hard!)
I decided to turn on the Weather Channel before walking out the door. The first 30 seconds they were blaring out that loud annoying warning tone and the pre-recorded man's voice said "There is a tornado warning for your area." (And even I know the difference between a "watch" and a "warning"!) I told my dad "There's a tornado in Springfield! He switched on the local news station and the local news was broadcasting live, showing us the funnel as it touched down upon the Connecticut River right beside the bridge, right downtown where I was supposed to be.
The tornado touched down in the water of the Connnecticut River at about 4:30 PM, which was when I was probably going to be right on the bridge (called the Memorial Bridge***). There was a tractor trailer flipped on its side on the bridge due to the tornado. I have never before in my life been so glad to have been late!
(***The Memorial Bridge was built in the 1920's as a tribute to WWI vets. Gorgeous piece of workmanship, and there are four smaller towers rising out of the bridge which have actual ocean mines mounted atop their tips. You know the ocean mines I am talking about -- the ones that float in the water as big round metal balls with giant sharp metal spikes sticking out on all sides. If you watch the news footage of this Springfield/West Springfield tornado on the internet, you can see a very beautiiful Italian clock tower in the forground, and then the bridge in the background as the tornado touches down beside it. Magnificent bridge. I hope that truck driver is okay.)
