NOW THAT WE'VE HAD ONE, TORNADOES MATTER:

A woman, her little dog, and a twister: No, not that story, but close. From Springfield, a tale of green skies, sheer terror, and the random power of fate (Kevin Cullen, June 5, 2011, Boston Globe)

Katie went home and waited for her 17-year-old son Michael to get ready for work. Then she drove him to the Friendly’s on Page Boulevard. After she dropped Michael off, she saw the sky had turned a weird color and the wind was getting crazy. She walked back into the Friendly’s and watched a tornado go by in the distance.

Maureen walked into her house on Arcadia Boulevard and called her son Jeremy, who just graduated from the University at Buffalo.

“Mom,’’ he said, “I’m in Amherst. There’s a tornado watch.’’

Maureen turned on the TV and realized a tornado was headed her way. She looked at the big plate-glass window that affords a sumptuous view over Watershops Pond and decided it would be safer in the basement. It sounded like a train was rumbling overhead, so she grabbed Scruffy and went into the small basement bathroom and closed the door.

The toilet gurgled. The drains in the sink and the shower sounded like vacuums. The pressure made Maureen think her head was going to explode, that her heart would burst, that blood would spurt from her ears. Scruffy buried her head into her midsection.

It would be wrong to say Maureen Lessard thought she was going to die, because the truth is she didn’t know what to think. She endured four minutes of sheer terror.

A few miles away, Katie Orellana stood in the Friendly’s on Page Boulevard while the sky turned green and black and yellow. Her son made Fribbles. The waitresses cried.

When the sun came back, Katie rushed home to Forest Park Avenue, expecting the worst. But when she got there, she found her teenage daughters in the living room, oblivious to the tornado that missed them by a few streets.

“They were clueless. They didn’t even know there had been a tornado,’’ Katie said. “I looked up and down our street and nothing looked out of place. Nothing. There weren’t even leaves on the ground.’’

On the other side of Forest Park, it looked like Arcardia Boulevard had been carpet-bombed.

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