Stormy Weather Ahead

So, blogger John (at the Scalzi Compound in Ohio) had his brush with rough weather last night, but over here at AOL HQ in Virginia, we just got our own severe thunderstorm/tornado watch, which went into effect at 6pm EDT.

While we do get the occasional severe thunderstorm alert, tornado warnings are relatively rare around here, so we're kind of... well, I can't speak for everyone, but in my experience, we're kind of stupid when it comes to this kind of thing.

Take for example, September of 2004. We had a pretty bad thunderstorm (remnants of Hurricane Ivan, IIRC [If I Recall Correctly]), where the rain was blowing sideways in solid sheets and pooling up under the doors.

It was towards the tail end of the workday, but there were still lots of folks around; there was an announcement over the PA that tornadoes were reported in the area, and that we should move towards the center of the building.

So what happens? Of course everyone rushes up and presses up against the huge glass windows to get a better view.

As it turns out, there actually was a tornado that touched down on campus; a few people got video on their camera phones and whatnot. It passed through without hitting anything, though it did wreck a bunch of houses a few counties south of here.

I didn't see it, though not because I was prudent and hunkered down in the basement -- I was probably just looking in the wrong direction.

Anyway, I knew that I had blogged about it at some point, but I couldn't find an entry about it. Doing a quick search in the archives of the Washington Post for "tornado", though, I was able to narrow the timeframe to 2004 (as noted, we don't get that many tornadoes around here, so there weren't that many articles).

Where was I blogging in 2004? Oh, that's right -- The Expressions Factory.

Anyway, more true-life adventures from AOL HQ. Thanks -- Joe