My Tornado Story

By Cynthia, Age 10
Knoxville, Tennessee

One day, I was coming back from softball practice for the MiniLeagues. I had a hot dog in my hand and my sports bag round my ankle, dragging it every step because my hands were full. When we got to the doorway of our house, I looked up at the sky that used to be sunny. Now the sky was green! I asked my dad (who is a science professer at Texas Community College) and he said that sometimes the sky can be green because the moisture from the grass gets evaporated into the air, then it goes up into the sky. I was really suprised to hear this! Then i could see a big cloud forming right across the field where we grow our corn. The cloud was really grey and big. Then it started moving and swirling. I saw it pick up a shingle off our barn!!! Then it tore off two, then it left. It was really scary!!! My dad said that this could be a F5 tornado, because it was causing so much destruction to our barn. The tornado was coming toward us closer and closer. Finally I could feel the air coming. It sucked my hot dog right out of my hand! Then it started to pull on my bag. It pulled me to where the fence
was, then my bag got stuck on the fence!!! So the air was pulling me up and the fence was keeping me down. Then finally it started pulling the fence out of the ground!!! So i went up with it, but then I got thrown down and I hit the ground hard. I had a major piece of fence hit my foot. It hurt so bad and I was crying and my mom was crying too. My dad called for the
hospital. We went there and they said that there was no damage done. Now we live safely at home, but tornados still have a threat of hitting us.

My thoughts of after the tornado were good. It was fun seeing the swirl of air in the sky, but it was very brown because of all the dirt in it.