by Katie Lynn
(Wisconsin)
On Monday June 22,2010 at about 7:30 pm, I was camping at Hidden Valley RV Resort in Milton, Wisconsin. We were going to go home that day but decided to stay another night. I am 13 now. I was sitting around the campfire with my sister and dad. I was hoping to go swimming later that evening, which at the time seemed like a great idea, considering it was only sprinkling. About 5 minutes later it started lightning in the distance, it was also thundering; some loud, like fireworks, others soft and in the distance. I figured nothing would happen, even though the sky was turning gray. I still sat there, in my lawn chair, watching the fire that my dad spent an hour trying to light because the wood was wet, go out. The rain sizzled as it hit the burning wood. I was looking at the sky hoping not to see a funnel cloud, which I learned all about in my “tornado safety” class in science that year. About 15 minutes I sat in the same spot watching lightning strike about a half mile from where I was. I guess I was unaware that there was a tornado watch in my county. Even though I knew how to be safe in case of a tornado, I did not go in my travel trailer. Soon it started raining a little harder and my sister and I decided to gather our things that were sitting on the picnic table outside our trailer. The 2 things I did leave out there were my 5 dive sticks,which were filled with rocks and my beach towel, which was on the railing on the awning of our trailer. I went to the bathroom and the hail started coming down. Let me tell you, in a travel trailer with good 1 inch diameter hail, it was as loud as fireworks, and I am not exaggerating at all! I was very scared because our trailer was shaking. My dad, who was in the bedroom, ran to the bathroom because he thought that I was making noise with something. All of the sudden I heard a HUGE boom! The awning on our camper had snapped off and was now on the top of it. I hurried out of the bathroom and heard my dad say, “That was our awning!” I looked out the window by our table and saw the awning rod on the top of our trailer. My dad went outside and was trying to fix it. I opened the door to see if my dad wanted help with anything and saw that the awning was draped over the door, like a curtain. My mom was yelling at me to get inside. I then went over to my sister’s bunk and was watching my dad. I decided that I could probably get a better view from my bunk which was on the top. I looked out and saw at least 5 little funnel shaped clouds. I then almost started crying, I know I get scared easily, but you just never know when you life can end. It can flash in front of you in a quick second. I looked out and I saw pick-up trucks and SUV’s driving through water on the ground. Soon some people started coming toward our camper. They told my dad to get what you need and go to the clubhouse because there was a tornado warning until 11:00 pm. The clubhouse is a place you go in case of an emergency. So I gathered what I absolutely had to have; camera, phone, sweatshirt, and book(just in case we were there for a while). My mom and sister on the otherhand, were grabbing blankets and pillows. My dad and I tried to tell them that they don’t need that stuff but my sister didn’t listen, she stuffed her favorite blanket and pillow into her backpack and my mom dropped the blankets and grabbed my 2 dogs. I got my bag and my guinea pig and ran to the car. Actually it was more like a slow-motion run than an in-a-hurry- run. The water was freezing cold, almost as if somebody had dropped ice in it, the hail was probably melting. The water was about 6 inches in some places. In other places there was only about an inch. I was wearing flip-flops and they kept getting stuck in the water so I decided to just take them off and go barefoot, which let me tell you was a better idea than wearing flip-flops, even though it was VERY cold. It took my sister a little longer than it took me because she had to grab her guinea pig too. A couple minutes later my mom and dad hopped in the car and we drove to the clubhouse. When we got there and grabbed all of our pets, we ran inside and went straight to the basement. It was crowded, probably about 50 people in there. But we found a table and sat down. Everyone had their pets with them. My mom started talking to these people sitting at the table across from us, and heard this story: 2 women had fallen down into the cold water and were swept along by the current. They crawled and held on to the branches in the bush and then waited a while and then walked to the clubhouse. We waited about 20 minutes, along with everyone else in the clubhouse, until the warning was over. Then an employee came in and said we could go back to our trailers and cabins.
The next day, I woke up and went straight outside, still in my pajamas. I found my dive sticks all over my campsite and my beach towel in the campsite where a motorhome was. Apparently when our awning broke it flung my towel about 100 feet and the towel floated til it got underneath a motorhome. We cleaned up our site and even helped others with theirs too. I have never seen so many people that did not even know each other, work together and help each other out. Later that afternoon I turned on the TV and saw that there was a tornado less that 40 minutes from where we were; in Eagle, Wisconsin. Even though we did not encounter the tornado, we sure felt the effects of the storm.
Later that afternoon we left the campground. I was looking out my window and there were dead and broken tree branches everywhere you look. Also on the way home my dad was telling my sister and I about this pop-up trailer that was spun 90 degrees and a fully grown tree that fell on a camper and only put a small dent in it. I was just happy that we were all were safe and that all we lost was our awning and not our family or pets.
That just shows that even though you are not in the town that the tornado occured in, it doesn’t mean that you can’t feel the effects of the storm. My family could very well have been a victim of the tornado. The storm went through the campground before the tornado developed and touched down, in Eagle.