Storm Look 2 example essay topic

SSN#ENC 1101 Narrative Word Count: 90309/19/02 Twisted Audience: General Audience / Instructor Purpose: Literary work To explain how a tornado can affect a family. Thesis Sentence: Although an event may be traumatic it is not necessarily life changing. Outline: I. Describe the setting A. Where / When. What was heard 1. What did the tornado sound like 2. How did parents direct usC.

What was seen 1. How did the storm look 2. What did the tornado look like II. What was on the farm. House.

Storm Cellar. Animals D. Trees E. Newly plowed and planted fields. Where did we goA. Root cellar. Neighbor. What did the tornado doA.

To the farm. To the family guess everyone experiences at least one terrifying event in his or her lifetime. How we assimilate the event shapes our attitudes, or maybe vice-versa. It can become the catalyst that lead, to phobias; sometimes it even earns itself a fancy title with "syndrome" attached to the end of it. I just call it a memory, but one I shared with eight other people. In a north central Indiana cornfield, not far from Indianapolis, my father returned to his chores in the field after a brief rain shower had passed.

The edge of an enormous thunderstorm, laced with brilliant lightning, had passed overhead and it seemed as if the worst of the storm was over. Life was not easy on the fertile soil of Wabash County, Indiana, on May 25, 1966. For my family, life was about to become even harder. A muffled roar in the distance grew louder and sharper.

As dad began to move toward the house, he realized that the low, indistinct form in the distance was not rain or a patch of fog. It was a rotating transparent funnel, beneath a dark mass of cloud. It extended from under the southwest corner of the thunderstorm. An occasional snake-like form would briefly appear within the cloud, and then suddenly vanish.

It was coming directly toward our farm. The next time he looked, three or four contorted and transparent columns would briefly circle the center of what looked like a patch of swirling mist. The cloud looked nothing like the thin funnels and ropes that we had seen in the distance every few years. Dad now ran at full speed for the house, trying with each breath to shout 'Twister!' Within the next few seconds, nine people would make life or death decisions about self-preservation, about prized possessions, and about family members. The rotating cloud had changed from transparent mist to a solid brown mass, at the edge of the newly 1 planted fields. The twister continued to advance relentlessly toward the farm.

With the edge of the vortex still to the southwest, the corner of the roof suddenly gave way and the 30-year-old maple trees that surrounded the house began to snap. A powerful jet of air flowing into the tornado began ripping at the house. The entire building vibrated as the unearthly roar grew steadily louder. One of my sisters grabbed a prized locket from a dresser, another gazed at the barnyard full of panic-stricken animals, and another yelled for her dog.

My oldest brother stared in denial at our mother, as the youngest child just stood there and cried. My mother yelled for everyone to head immediately for the small root cellar. The storm cellar, dug some distance from the house, was now out of reach behind a growing wall of flying debris. The root cellar was the only remaining refuge. We children went first, my mother grabbing each of us by the arm, and quickening our movement by a step. My father braced himself against the kitchen door.

The last child was on the steps when our parents finally moved toward the cellar, but the first of the intense whirling columns had reached the house. None of us children know whether there was, between our parents, a final glance at one another. If there were final words at the top of the stairs, they could not have been heard above the deafening roar. Winds in excess of 200 mph created such a pressure on the sides of the farmhouse that the building finally reached its limit. In an instant, a lifetime of work, walls, beams, furniture, clothes, toys, books, family treasures, and tools were all airborne. Some would fall only a few hundred feet away, while smaller bits and pieces would be carried more 2 than 120 miles.

Sheet metal and boards flew across the barnyard at astonishing speeds, impaling anything that was standing. The 12-inch-thick floor joist, on which the house had sat for eighty years, would hit the ground a half-mile away and stick five feet into the ground. An entire twenty-five foot maple tree was found two miles away. After a few minutes we emerged from the cellar, not into the kitchen from were we had entered, but out into a rain and hail storm. We located the lifeless body of our dog about 100 yards from the empty foundation. Our mother and father, hurt but alive, were found 200 yards further away in the middle of a newly plowed field.

Our mother, father, my siblings, and I, ran through a barrage of golf ball size hail. We arrived at the neighbor's farm battered, bloodied, and badly frightened. Physical recovery returned quickly, but the deeper emotional scars would take much longer to heal. The process of putting our lives back together was slow and arduous. Though my family would drift apart over the years, we still shared a bond, though it is one of fear and survival. I only think about it once in a while now, usually in June, and whenever the storms advance to the status of earning themselves a name.

The twister did not have a name. For me, time and events were divided into a before and after category. It's a shame the bond between the nine of use didn't do more to unite us. I guess we all coped with it individually, in isolation, in our own twisted way. 3.