Tornado Warning, Tornado Touchdown
I am going to preface this blog post with I am OK and that this story has a fine ending.
In 5th grade there was a book we read. I don't remember the title but it was about this town that was hit with 7 tornadoes over the course of 24 hours. And I thought about this book (or at the very least the pieces I remembered) a good amount during the last 48 hours or so. The narrator spends the first chapter talking about red letter days, he phrases them like they only come around once in a while but are the days that you will never want to forget, and black letter days, the worst moments that you want to forget but never really can. This session has been a lot like that but in moments instead of days- amongst all the chaos there are definitely things that I never want to forget!
If you haven't heard, Cape Cod was hit with two tornadoes over the course of Monday and Tuesday, We are all okay and the camp is mostly okay (our incredible site manager has finished almost all of the repairs), a couple of the beach and day camp tents came down and a whole bunch of trees came down.
Now let me catch you up to speed on what happened at camp. Monday night there was a tornado warning. We woke up all of the girls and moved them into the dining hall. Some of the girls fell asleep on the table in the dinning hall and after about 30 minutes we moved back to the tents and put the girls back to bed. A big shoutout goes to the Sampler Staff who helped keep the girls calm and move them as fast as they could.
Tuesday started as a usual day but then at lunch everything changed again. Everyone was called for an early lunch and then we locked ourselves in as the tornado started doing its thing. Then during lunch the power went out and because of the outage we no longer had water since camp is dependent on an electric well. After 2 pm people were allowed to leave but certain units were off limits. The other unit I was a supervisor for had fun times with me for two hours so their staff could have a break. I then played games with my samplers who are only at camp for 2 days before they got picked up. They were all gone by 5:15 so me and the staff helped move some of the debris and got ready for dinner.
During dinner, we had a staff meeting and were told that we would be spending the night at our sister camp in Plymouth. Me and some of the staff left before the campers to try to dry all of the things that got wet in the storm. We didn't end up drying it because it was too late, so we just headed to WIP. It took an hour and change to get to the camp where we immediately went to bed.
Wednesday morning we got up and had breakfast at WIP and then played some games with our campers and we were able to do high ropes with them. Staff were then called again and we were told that camp would be shutdown for the rest of the week. So after lunch we went back to our camp got the girls all packed up and then moved them to waltham to get picked up by parents. After the kids were all gone we were free to leave as well and I arrived home safely at 8:15 pm.
All in all, this could have been a lot worse than it was and I am thankful for so much-the staff for staying calm, the kids for being troopers, WIP for hosting us, council for helping in all the ways they did, and the parents for being so understanding and appreciative-but it is a little weird being home now because in my head I am still moving through the routine of camp.
I know this was a longer one from me but I am ok and I just wanted everyone to be aware.
In 5th grade there was a book we read. I don't remember the title but it was about this town that was hit with 7 tornadoes over the course of 24 hours. And I thought about this book (or at the very least the pieces I remembered) a good amount during the last 48 hours or so. The narrator spends the first chapter talking about red letter days, he phrases them like they only come around once in a while but are the days that you will never want to forget, and black letter days, the worst moments that you want to forget but never really can. This session has been a lot like that but in moments instead of days- amongst all the chaos there are definitely things that I never want to forget!
If you haven't heard, Cape Cod was hit with two tornadoes over the course of Monday and Tuesday, We are all okay and the camp is mostly okay (our incredible site manager has finished almost all of the repairs), a couple of the beach and day camp tents came down and a whole bunch of trees came down.
Now let me catch you up to speed on what happened at camp. Monday night there was a tornado warning. We woke up all of the girls and moved them into the dining hall. Some of the girls fell asleep on the table in the dinning hall and after about 30 minutes we moved back to the tents and put the girls back to bed. A big shoutout goes to the Sampler Staff who helped keep the girls calm and move them as fast as they could.
Tuesday started as a usual day but then at lunch everything changed again. Everyone was called for an early lunch and then we locked ourselves in as the tornado started doing its thing. Then during lunch the power went out and because of the outage we no longer had water since camp is dependent on an electric well. After 2 pm people were allowed to leave but certain units were off limits. The other unit I was a supervisor for had fun times with me for two hours so their staff could have a break. I then played games with my samplers who are only at camp for 2 days before they got picked up. They were all gone by 5:15 so me and the staff helped move some of the debris and got ready for dinner.
During dinner, we had a staff meeting and were told that we would be spending the night at our sister camp in Plymouth. Me and some of the staff left before the campers to try to dry all of the things that got wet in the storm. We didn't end up drying it because it was too late, so we just headed to WIP. It took an hour and change to get to the camp where we immediately went to bed.
Wednesday morning we got up and had breakfast at WIP and then played some games with our campers and we were able to do high ropes with them. Staff were then called again and we were told that camp would be shutdown for the rest of the week. So after lunch we went back to our camp got the girls all packed up and then moved them to waltham to get picked up by parents. After the kids were all gone we were free to leave as well and I arrived home safely at 8:15 pm.
All in all, this could have been a lot worse than it was and I am thankful for so much-the staff for staying calm, the kids for being troopers, WIP for hosting us, council for helping in all the ways they did, and the parents for being so understanding and appreciative-but it is a little weird being home now because in my head I am still moving through the routine of camp.
I know this was a longer one from me but I am ok and I just wanted everyone to be aware.
what a whirlwind
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