[This comes from a narrative written by Emmilou Collins Edmonds Adams around the year 2000. Portions in brackets [] were added for clarification.]
I had never had any experiences with tornados as a child. The nearest thing was the bad hail storm we had in San Antonio (see Down in San Antonio). When I was in college my roommate worried about them when she would hear about them on the news. She came from west Texas.
As I began my life in Oklahoma, they have often been in my thoughts--especially in the spring which is usually thought of being tornado time, though there have been many at other times of the year including Christmas time.
My first experience was on night after Memorial Day. I don’t remember the year but I would guess it was about 1954. At least it was before we had in sirens to warn us. We were awakened in the night with police cars driving the streets with their sirens going. Lee and I got up and got the kids up and we just huddled and waited not having the least idea of what we ought to do. We just waited till we got an all clear. (How did we know?) Later we learned that many people got into their cars and went to the Phillips tunnel and others drove south actually crossing the path of the tornado.
At that time the tornado did not touch down at least in a populated area.
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