I minored in meteorology for some reason.
“Gotta minor in something,” I suspect I said to myself at one point.
Li’l Baby Scaia used to zone out with The Weather Channel on. This was back before they started naming random storms and airing shows about driving trucks. In The Weather Channel’s defense, many of the shows are about driving trucks in extreme weather. But Li’l Baby Scaia was a fan back, you know, when they still talked about the weather.
I bring this up because that background makes me almost positive a tornado doesn’t know if you’re a Republican or Democrat.
This came up when I wandered into Jacksboro this week to shove a microphone in the face of tornado victims.
I started at the high school, which had been damaged.
Electric crews were staging in the parking lot. One gentleman mentioned he had seen trucks from as far away as Missouri and Kentucky.
So he rounded up his co-workers and showed up with a food truck and smoker, ready to cook up a thousand burgers for the utility crews and people forced out of their home.
He mentioned after the primary a few weeks ago, the tornado might just serve as a way for us to recognize what unites us: A Gallup poll would likely reveal strong bi-partisan support for people’s homes not being destroyed.
About a mile away, a few restaurants downtown were serving meals to people with damage at their home. At JR’s Chophouse, I’ve enjoyed the CFS sandwich before [although I now regret I’ve never had the Texas Cheese Steak. I imagine that’d be more fiercely independent and in-your-face than Philly Cheese Steak]. The owner says he fired up the grill the night of the storm.
He wound up busier than a normal night, so he says his supplier even offered to send a truck. A friend of his from Aurora, about 50 miles away, drove up with some bottled water to hand out.
Before the storms hit Monday, I had been in Granbury, about 70 miles south, where shelters had opened up for wildfire evacuees. Volunteers there were gathering supplies for firefighters.
The owner of JR’s presents a strong point: We needed rain, but listen, God, You know this isn’t what we meant.
Loyal Scaiaholics will recall my frustration that it takes things going gunny sack before we all realize how much we have in common and start looking out for each other again. This time, it took 14 tornadoes in North Texas and 48 tornadoes across the Southeast to get convince us to stop arguing on Facebook for a moment.
Back in Jacksboro, the tornado damaged the press box at the football stadium. The gentleman who had borrowed the food truck said his son was at the field house at the school with his coach and a bunch of other students when the tornado hit.
The storm knocked down a “V” Jacksboro lights up after a win. He reports once they get the sign fixed, Jacksboro will declare victory over the tornado.
