I'll Say She Is!
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Friday, 4 October 2002
Tornado Cake
Do these come in a size 10?

Ten years ago yesterday, the manufacturing facility / office of my current employer was hit and demolished by a tornado. Fortunately it was on a Saturday, so only a handful of people were there, and no one was hurt. The result was that the nice new facility (nice except there's no hot water in the kitchen near Marketing and often the A/C either works too well or not enough) where my cubicle stands was brought into being.

If I'm Dorothy, does that make Uncle Chuck the Tin Man or the Scarecrow?

The tornado has caused a weird corporate culture here. Whenever the weather looks ominous, folks that worked here ten years ago get very nervous, look out the window a lot, visit weather.com, and wonder out loud if a tornado really would hit the same location again. They keep a photo album of the destruction left by the twister in the lobby. I even knew about the tornado before I got my current job - my previous employer got a nice contract to scan and store technical plans as a result of the current employer's storm paranoia, so I got to write an article about the whole thing for my ex-employer's newsletter.

I can understand a little tornado fear - I grew up in Ohio and used to fell at least a little nervousness whenever a severe storm would pass through the area. At least in Ohio we had a basement where I could retreat. Now that I'm a big girl, I'm not near as nervous of the dreaded funnel-shaped storms; if I had the money, I'd like to go on one of those tornado-chasing vacations. I wonder, is there some synchronicity at work here? The tornado, my fascination/former nervousness about them, my former employer getting the work because my current one got hit ?

About a week ago, signs with a clip art drawing of a tornado, reading "Where Were You on Saturday, October 3, 1992?", appeared all over the building. (I really freaked out when someone wrote one one of them "I was a junior in high school!") Yesterday, the signs were changed, with the invitation that at 2:00 in the lunch room, there would be cake to commemorate the event that led to our new building.

There's no place like my cubicle

The cake was your normal sheet cake, but it was embellished with a photo of the demolished old building. I missed it if anyone made a speech about the tornado, since I had a doctor's appointment at lunchtime; but there was some tornado cake left for me to enjoy.

I work for a very strange company.

Posted by ginevra (link)
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Comments
I grew up near xenia, and so we constantly heard about "the big one of 72" (i thinkit's was 72)

That was when nearly the entire town was flattened by like 12 twisters in like one hour. There aren't many buildings older than 1972, they nearly had to rebuild the entire town.

They got hit again back inthe 90's - not nearly as bad but enough to spook the hell out of everyone as it took like the same path. Xenia is pretty famous for it's tornadoes.
Posted by Jen on 6 Oct 2002 17:39
You know, I remember hearing about that a bit when I lived in Akron. I bet that did contribute to my tornado fear, though as I search my memory banks I don't have a memory of seeing it specifically on TV. I do remember reading all about tornadoes in Ranger Rick or some similar news magazine for kids.

I was never comforted by the tornado drills we had in high school in Florida. There, they herded us kids into the cafeteria - a huge room with a huge plate glass wall. Any Ohioan could tell we were as good as toast should an actual tornado take place.
Posted by Karen on 7 Oct 2002 14:22