“There’s a big one” my brother hollered
Another bolt of lightning struck a big oak tree on the corner of the field. As the school day came to a close, my brothers and I stood in the windowed lobby of our school patiently waiting for our mother to pick us up. We gazed upon a small grassy field thinking of the power of the tornado like storm; our anticipation of arriving home so we could go to the garage and sit in the trunk of my mom’s blue minivan slowly built. Waiting in the lobby watching these strikes of bright white lightning in the sky we pondered where our mom could be.
She finally arrived. Wondering what had taken so long we asked her where she had been. She said, “I had to park in the train station parking lot because the road flooded under the bridge.” I dreaded the two block walk to the train station. I did not want to get my clothes sopping wet but I could see it would be inevitable. We started the wet and windy trek, as soon as we came around the first corner laid our eyes on some of the damage done by the storm so far. Boom, boom, boom; another strike of lightning. We saw an abundance of sticks, large branches with their leaves still on, tree limbs with the color of life still present and a single downed power line occasionally sparking with the hum of electricity flowing through it. We reached the bridge and sure enough a 3 foot pool of dark murky water spanned the entire road with a police officer on one side stopping cars from driving through it. Once we had walked under the bridge we loped up a flight of old cement stairs. Upon reaching the top of the stairs we spotted our night blue minivan and started walking towards it. We reached the front of our car about to walk to the doors to get in. And all of a sudden a bolt of blinding lightning struck the grey SUV next to us, 5 feet away from me. This lightning, rain and wind ridden afternoon is one I will never forget.