This is what greeted me after my first class this morning. Tropical Storm Hermine (pronounced her-mean and not her-mine-ie) made landfall in Texas, with San Antonio and Austin in its direct path. That meant Bryan College Station got the “northeast quadrant” meaning tons of rain and the severe stuff.
After class, my project group met with the professor to discuss our presentation outline. I then proceeded to walk in the torrential downpour to my car. When I was just about there, I walked in Rudder Tower (a substantial and important administrative building on campus – it’s where our visitor center and performance theatre is) as I usually do since the added student center construction began a couple of years ago. Well, it just so happens that I decided to stop and catch up on my texts before continuing back outside to my car when I got the Code Maroon text message - “Tornado warning. Tornadic activity near College Station moving toward campus. Seek shelter immediately.”
Therefore, my plans changed to staying in the tower with every other student the University Police Department was able to wrangle into the building from walking by outside. Long story short, it was found that a tornado was on the ground headed towards us. Awesome. We then were moved into a hallway, and the rest of the campus was going through similar procedures in their respective buildings. Kind of like lockdown mode.
Once it all subsided, I was able to continue back to my car and ultimately my apartment. However, it was a scary adventure I certainly wouldn’t want to repeat. I mean, there have been tornados in my life, but none in which a red target sign was basically drawn on the building I was in.
I must also point out that the area in College Station where this said tornado touched down was at the intersection my apartment is located at… Good thing I wasn’t there or I would have had a serious panic attack and hidden in the bathtub with all of my belongings. I would probably still be there right now if that was the case. I do not do tornados. No sir.
