The Terror of the First F5 Tornado

The nonstop high plains wind suddenly fell dead still, leaving the evening air hot and heavy over Lubbock, Texas. Impossibly dark clouds hung low in the sky.

Standing in the yard outside her family’s trailer home, 12-year-old Cindy Keele saw the worry appear in her grandmother's face. “Go in and put on your shoes,” Keele’s grandmother said flatly (断然地). “We have to get to the storm cellar.”

The girl dashed inside. As soon as the screen door slapped shut behind her, hail (冰雹) began rapping against the roof. Keele yelled to her mother, “Grandma says we have to get to the storm cellar!” Then a hailstone the size of a softball smashed through the kitchen window. Another one punched a hole in the ceiling. And then came the sound: the unmistakable, ear-splitting roar of an approaching tornado.

Cindy Keele’s mother was suddenly on the same page. But getting herself, her three kids, and her mother to safety was no simple matter -the shelter was at the opposite end of the trailer park. If they didn’t drive, they’d never make it.

The five moved quickly to the family car, trying to avoid pieces of hail. At last, everyone was in the car.

“My purse!” Keele’s grandmother shouted, “My purse is still in there!”

Keele jumped out of the car and ran back into the house. She fetched the purse and dashed back into the maelstrom (漩涡). She almost made it, “As I ran to the car,” she says, “an enormous hailstone hit me in the back of the neck. I was told it was the size of a soccer ball.” The next few minutes were a blur for the girl. Her next clear memory was of inside the shelter.

“I guess there were 60 of us in there, plus dogs and cats,” Keele says. “The sound outside was deafening. And then, all of a sudden, it got quiet.” Cautiously, the group went up from underground.

“My mother ran straight for our street. What she found was-nothing.” The place where our house had been were pieces of houses, but not pieces of our house. “I’d never seen my mom cry,” Keele recalls softly. “But she was on her knees. She was broken.”

May 11 marks the 51st anniversary of the 1970 Lubbock tornado, the first such storm ever to be classified F5.

Having lived in California until 1970, my family has felt a number of earthquakes. We have been fortunate, however, to have suffered no bodily harm or property damage.

There is a website that lists all Californian earthquakes recorded from 1769 to the present. The site lists the dates and time as well as the magnitude (震级) and the exact location of any earthquake that measured more than 6.0. There are only a few earthquakes that stand out in my memory and, luckily, none is shown in the website. So, my personal experience with earthquakes might be considered insignificant.

There are three earthquakes that are difficult to forget. The first one was in 1955 and our oldest daughter was walking with me in our backyard in Redwood City in California. As the shaking became stronger, I held her to me with one arm as I held on to one of our fruit trees with the other. All three of us (my daughter, I and the tree) shook for two or three minutes that to us felt like hours.

The second one was in 1963. Our entire family was visiting Disneyland in Southern California. The earth started to shake just as we were beginning to walk from our hotel towards the famous landmark.

My third experience with an earthquake was a lonely one in California. It was in my sixties and I was alone in an old church. As the building started to shake, I quickly headed for the door to go outside. I remember I said a few prayers—something like “Help me get out of here in time, dear Heavenly Father.” Minutes later, I was safe outside.

A months-long drought affecting most of southern Africa has led to serious food shortage for millions of people.

The United Nations estimates(估计 )that more than 11 million people are facing extreme lack of food. The World Food Program says southern Africa has received normal rainfall in just one of the past five growing seasons.

Among the hardest hit areas is South Africa’s Northern Cape province. There, many farmers are struggling to keep their families and animals alive as they lose money and debt grows. Sheep farmer Louis told the AP he had lost more than 400 sheep over the past two years. He said this drought was the worst during his 45 years of farming. He got emotional while explaining that he now accepted donations of animal feed so he could keep the rest of his animals alive.

It’s estimated that this area will need at least $28 million over the next three months to assist 15, 500 affected farms. So far, South Africa’s government has promised $2 million.

Gertruida from Vosburg told the AP things had gotten so bad that she shared her family’s food with their animals. Small children were hungry, too. At Vosburg’s only school, Delta Primary School, large groups of children lined up for what became both breakfast and lunch. The meal usually included corn meal, vegetables and soup. “It’s very hard for the parents to actually feed their children at home, “one teacher said.

In Kimberley, the capital of Northern Cape, government officials give out money from the $2 million disaster aid program. The job can be difficult because some farmers live in places that are not easy to get to.