Tornado Season

Thursday reminded me of the main drawback of living in Missouri: tornadoes.

So tornado season has officially begun, with the first tornadoes touching down in Parkville. The first reports came about 5:15 p.m., and the office cleared out as quickly as the sky darkened. Within 45 minutes, the tornado sirens went off as the rain made visibility next to nothing.

Thursday's tornados served as a reminder that:

1. People are dumb. Tornado sirens blaring, heavy rain falling, hail beating down. Hmm, let's see...I think I should hop into my car and drive home. Yep, that seems like a smart idea. So thumb's up to the hundreds of people at my company who did just that.

2. If a natural disaster happens while I am at work, I am screwed. I sit on the top floor (Floor 6) of a brand-new, state-of-the-art building. Every single wall is made of floor-to-ceiling windows. The stairwells are pure glass. So good luck not getting impaled by a shard of glass while taking cover. We've had several false fire alarms. When trying to leave the building, I have still been in the stairwell, around the fourth floor, 15-minutes after the alarm went off. My memorial will be a series of 1s and 0s, binary code spelling out a final tribute.

Happy tornado season!