As every good Alabamaian knows, a Tornado warning divides the masses into two groups: those who hide and those who watch. I used to be a Hider, but once the children came, I graduated to Watcher.

At the in- laws home on a stormy night (they have a basement afterall) the warning sounds and the groups split. Posting myself on the porch, facing east, watching lightening streaking at its strobelike pace. My narrowed eyes scan the sky with each flash of light. The ground rumbles through my shoes with the crashing thunder as if the earth threatens to swallow us whole.

A tell tale “click tick” and before I can close my eyes, a massive bolt reaches down and grabs a pine an hundred feet from the porch. I wonder, from the white blindness and thunderous deafening if I have found death, until the shaking starts.

Blinking furiously to clear the phantom sparks, I turn stumbling to the door. Forcing my limbs to work, I walk into the house and retire to the basement. For the rest of the night, I will be a Hider.