Wild Weather

It came on so fast. We didn't really know what was happening. "Annastazia! Grab the kids and run to the shelter now!" "What about you?" "I'll be fine! Get the kids now and run to the shelter! Hurry! It's coming!" I did as I was told.

It was a calm day, July 5th. It was our second day of camping at Gavins Point Dam in Yankton, SD. We were camping along with another family that are close friends of ours. They have three kids: Payton is the same age as me, Noah is the same age as Rudy, and Ripley is the same age as Izzy. We had our campsite set up very neatly. There was one camper and three tents. The adults slept in the camper and the kids slept in the tents.

We had spent most of the day at the swimming beach, so when we got back to the campsite, we all took showers and changed out of our wet, sandy swimsuits. Daddy and Paul were starting the campfire and Mom and Tara were cutting up meat and veggetables for the stew. All of us kids were in the camper playing card games, we came out of the camper when we heard the Mom's calling us. It had started to sprinkle a little, and they wanted us to get the tents closed up in case it rained harder. We closed up the tents and then helped prepare super.

All of a sudden, it started to rain harder, and we all ducked under the camper awning. The Dad's were a little upset, because all of the fire wood was getting wet, the Mom's were upset because super would take longer to cook, and all of us kids just wanted out of that tiny, cramped space. Then, the power went out, we heard the air conditioner in the camper shut off. Daddy and Paul got into the truck to go down to the ranger's station to see how long the power would be out. While they were gone, the wind picked up tremendously. One of the over-hang tents started to blow away, and trash, leaves, and anything light was tossed around in the wind. As the wind picked up even more, one of the tents was about to blow into the fire. The Mom's rushed out and caught it. Just then, Tara looked up at the sky, my Mom looked up as well, and they both started yelling. My mom came to me and told me to take the kids to the shelter. I obeyed. We were all running down the windy road. I looked up at the sky, and all I saw was a huge wall of water about to hit all of us, the wind was so strong that it was carrying the rain water in sheets. As we ran up the road, Rudy was shouting at various other campers to get to the shelters. They all looked at him like he was crazy. When we finally got to the shelter, Paul was there, but Daddy had gone back to the camper. We waited out the storm in the shelter. Thankfully, there was no severe weather and no severe damage. Looking back, I realize just how scared I was when I was being shouted at to get the kids to the shelter. Everything turned out okay, but it still scares me to think about that.