We Love Our Storms

As this past week has proven in spades, we North Texans are subject to some of the most violent weather in the world, and it comes at a moment's notice. Typically tornadoes give you maybe five minutes warning. What a load of shit! We're by god cheated out of a decent gallows party. When the air raid sirens go off, I barely have time to pour a scotch on the rocks, much less margaritas for the multitudes. People on the gulf coast at least have a few days notice to get down to the liquor store for some tequila and maybe hit the grocer for a modest cheese plate or something.

And it seems that the ripest time for foul weather also includes late afternoon at the office. You'd have to keep a hip-flask of Cuervo and some margarita mix in your desk while watching the beast come hither through your 25th floor western exposure. A 55 cent bag of Dorito's out of the machine doesn't do justice to the massive destructive power of a Texas-style thunderstorm.

But, yet, we North Texans love our thunderstorms. The worse the better. It's a strange kind of schadenfreude where we sit glued to the TV or the internet just hoping a tornado is going to drop somewhere. We run with a strange dour glee from office to office telling one another about the funnel cloud that was spotted just north of Weatherford as the leading edge sheets of rain alight on our plate-glass office windows.

Long time Fort Worthians see major storms as mile-markers in life; they are points of inflection. The big April hailstorm back in 80 that caused 60 million bucks worth of damage and everyone got a new roof, and the Mayfest hailstorm in 95 where fathers were jumping on top of their children to protect them, along with the colossal downtown tornado in 2000 that turned a proper office tower into a plywood obelisk for the next three years or so.

We know the cost of storms in both blood and treasure, but we have persevered and thusly wear them as a badge of honor and with a sense of humor. It's a lot like racing, we watch to see the big crash and hope everyone walks away safely.