Oklahoma Tornado

Dear friends:

Just so you all know, I was in the tornado in Oklahoma. I had a show in
Tulsa, was in the middle of “Lost Worlds” (ironically the destruction of
Beirut sequences) when a stage hand told me quietly that a tornado was
bearing down on the auditorium and I was not to tell the audience or
panic anyone, but to be aware that if the lights went out or the place
imploded, it wasn’t his (the technician’s) fault. You know these stage
hands, always blaming management.

Talk about blowing the roof off the place with a performance. It was a
little hard to concentrate after that, knowing that any moment I might
be responsible for 600 people’s safety. But I didn’t panic. I just went
on with the show and at the very end, I warned them to be careful as I
didn’t want their homes to end up looking like the latest in Beirut real
estate. And in spite of the emminent disaster approaching, they all
lined up and bought videos like good little homeless people.

When I went out of the auditorium, it was 10pm and there was this eerie
stillness. No one out in the city at all, just a little wisp of wind and
a greenish dark sky. And a heavy feeling like water vapor in the air.
Something really spooky, an animal instinct told me.

The city was silent. But in the distance I could see flashes of light,
every 1 or 2 seconds, like Ethiopian lightning – an approaching storm.
The effect was more like a distant, harmless war going on across some
international border than anything really threatening (I’ve been doing
too much traveling in the Middle East obviously).

By the time I got to my hotel, there was a restless milling going on
amongst the guests. People sitting in their pickups trying to decide
whether to run for it or not. I tuned in CNN and saw the devastation at
OK city and saw the same storm was heading right up the interstate
towards, not only Tulsa, but my hotel! No kidding, the weathermen were
standing there with pointers, looking at detailed maps of Tulsa, and no
kidding if they weren’t pointing directly at the intersection where I
was. I half expected them to pull up a closer map and see the words
“RICK” and a red arrow right at me, Room 221.

It was a little unnerving. I sized up the hotel – a 3 story pre-fab kind
of motel thingy. I was facing west – the least desirable direction. And
to make matters worse, there was a huge highway billboard looming right
over the hotel which, ironically, said “WEATHER REPORTS EVERY 15 MINUTES
WITH THE CHANNEL 6 NEWS TEAM”. I appreciated their dedication, but then
again, if that sucker crashed into my hotel room, it was the kind of “in
your face” weather reporting I felt we should do without in our
sensationalist, violent and liberal biased media.

By now the thunder had turned from a distant rumble to a closer snap
crackle and boom. A few big fat drops of rain began spotting the
pavement. The TV was spouting off reports from news people in the field
from cel phones yelling unsettling things like “WHOAH, HOLY CATS! IT
JUST PICKED UP THE WHOLE BOWLING ALLEY! AND NOW IT’S GONE! JUST PLAIN
GONE!” I pictured myself like Dorothy in the middle of a funnel cloud of
bowling balls and the thought was somewhat unsettling, for one thing I
can’t bowl worth a damn on solid ground, let alone up in the sky
somewhere. I can only hope getting into heaven doesn’t in some way
involve bowling, I thought….just as some marble sized hail starting
hitting the ground. I looked across the street and there was a big, huge
hotel there – an Embassy Suites. It looked big and sturdy and, not only
that, if it came down to lawsuits, it looked like they had more money
for a settlement than my poverty stricken, East Indian managed, current
abode. I made a dash for it.

In the Embassy Suites, a higher classe of clientele than those at my
previous hotel had gathered in the lobby to watch reports on a big
screen TV.  The tornado had apparently taken the interstate between the
usual visits to trailer parks. It was still taking dead aim at us.

The management of the place was very organized and efficient, the
manager bore the same competent but slightly discombobulated manner as
the actor who played the captain in “Titanic”, which, I thought with a
start, was also a bit unsettling. It was a big luxurious hotel, with a
huge lobby and plants and fountains. If I am going to die, I thought, I
want to die with rich people in a pseudo Midwest
Garden-of-Eden-by-Marriot like this one than in my budget lodge where
the only accessory of note had been a stained and somewhat forlorn
ironing board on which I might, I imagined, surf to Oz.

Some people came in from a nearby restaurant. The management had made
everyone stop eating and told them they would have to get into the meat
locker. Only those with heavy clothing were allowed into the meat
locker. The rest were given the option of slightly frozen or slightly
windblown? Must have made a nice variation on “medium well?”, “well
done” or “rare”? I thought it would be perfect to survive the tornado
only to be discovered all frosted and cryogenically preserved in a
permanently frozen state of defecation for all to see.

We gathered in the bar to watch the news. The tornado was across the
river, about 10 miles away, tearing up alot of real estate. I found
myself inexplicably drawn outside, to a bench, watching the torrential
downpour, intense electrical activity and booms to put Yugoslavians on
edge….after my experiences in Ethiopia, I felt like yelling “you call
this a storm????? I’ll show you a storm!!!!!” I was, for some
inexplicable reason, as calm as the eye of the very monster that was
glowering at us.

Still I started to not like it so well when a sudden and unexpected gust
blew many trees directly over so their tips bent near to the ground and
some big pieces of garbage – some large palettes and crates blew by like
so many matchboxes in a breeze. I thought, “ok, I think I’ll go in now”.

Inside, people were more worried than I expected. Some were praying,
some crying, some joking nervously and many just somber, with a sense of
expectation and dread.

The storm had crossed the river and was between 2 and 3 miles away. I
looked out the door and the rain was horizontal and in sheets and the
trees just bent over, and a green-black sky with layers and sheets of
blackness, like a sickly chocolate layer cake, with arms reaching down
out of the clouds to embrace the land. The arms didn’t quite touch the
ground, when they did, I knew, they would form funnels. The constant
lightning illuminated the spectacle like a fireworks display. It was
weather I had never seen before in my life. I was fascinated.

I went back into the large ballroom where the crowd of about 300 hotel
guests had gathered. The manager came in and said the front of the storm
was about 2 miles away. I looked around at the people. Adults, children,
old folks, businessmen in suits and ties, blacks, whites, hispanics, and
I thought “I’m not dying with these strangers and they are not dying
either”. I knew this as firmly as I have every known anything and it
gave me great confidence. I looked at a scared little boy and a weeping
black woman and I thought “these people are NOT going to die!”

I told everyone in earshot that I had been to a whole lot of countries
and seen a whole lot of situations and believe me, afterwards you have a
helluva story to tell. That’s the joy of being in extraordinary
circumstances. Some one said “Its a great story, if you survive”, and I
said “I am buying anyone who survives a drink – a …. “hurricane” and
this got a huge laugh. Feeling the attention shift from the TV reports
of imminent doom over to me, I added “and could we change this station
to Ally McBeal, pleeease? this is depressing” Another big laugh. Someone
said “I think a rerun of the Wizard of Oz is on” – another laugh. Pretty
soon, the whole group was cracking jokes! That’s the best way to die!
Mock the odds! Laugh in the face of it! And we did. We bonded as a group
right there. When we went silent for a moment, I started to whistle the
Wicked Witch of the West theme, and everyone laughed again.

Within just a few moments, the front of the storm had passed over us -
the building didn’t even shudder. A tornado had set down within a mile
and a half, and the whole thing moved north, slowly shuffling it’s feet
and meting out its destruction whimsically across Oklahoma. We were in
the clear. As if on cue, our group broke up, dispersed, shuffled off to
bed, up the elevators, strangers united in relief. People who would
never unite again, or ever know each other or anything about each other
really, only having shared a random moment staring into the face of
panic.

I felt a sense of disappointment – that was ALL? While I was well aware
of the fate of hundreds around me and the utter devastation of the
event, in other parts of the city and state, still I somehow wanted
more. Typical travelogue artist – the show was over and I was still
energized, but the audience was …well, sleepy. I wanted to step out now
and challenge myself in a part of the world (Tulsa) where intellectual
and physical challenges are at a premium. But it was not to be.

What had united us had moved on, and now there was just polite
conversation and slight embarrassment at having shown your deepest fears
in public. That was it.

The rain and storms and intense weather continued for 2 whole days after
that. I returned to my little motel and looked at the faces of the
weathermen on the big billboard outside my room. “WEATHER EVERY 15
MINUTES WITH THE CHANNEL 6 NEWS TEAM”.

I was reminded of the old and hackneyed saying which every country and
every tourist brochure quotes to somehow explain away their bad weather
“If you don’t like the weather just wait 5 minutes”. It occurred to me
that the Channel 6 news team was waiting too long.

And, if these citizens of Tulsa really work at it, with help from the
Chamber of Commerce and a slight tax increase, I’ll bet they could get
that wait for the weather down to less than 5 minutes. If they really
try.

Ah well, back to the hurricane of my everyday life.

Best regards to you, and nice to see you again, with or without my new
toupee…..just remember, in life, “the answer, my friends, is blowin’
in the wind, the answer is blowin’ in the wind….”

- RR