Lo and Behold! **TORNADOES**

One thing I know...

I have NEVER heard of a Tornado hitting downtown Atlanta.

So, when I was laying in bed on Friday night, I was perplexed by the weather alerts that kept scrolling across the bottom of the screen. Then the wide-eyed weatherman issued a tornado warning.

I live in P-Town, about a mile and a half from downtown Atlanta. As a matter of fact, if I walk a block up the street, I can see the Atlanta skyline.

I kept thinking it was a joke. Tornadoes don't hit metropolitan areas. They tare up trailer parks.

I live nowhere near a trailer park.

Now, I happened to be yacking on the phone with LadyTee, and I mentioned it to her.

"You gonna be alright, Lee?" she asked.
"Girl, ain't nothing gonna happen. Downtown is on a hill. Not gonna happen."
"Well they said blah, blah, blah," she whined.

I looked over at my cat Oscar-Tyrone. He was laying at the bottom of the bed on his blanket. He was sleeping pretty hard.

"Yeah, I'm straight. I'm going to bed."
"Girl you better be careful."
"Listen, Tee. Oscar-Tyrone is sleep. As long as this doggone cat relaxing, and not acting silly, I'm gonna chill. If Oscar sit up and start acting crazy, I'm outta here. I'm grabbing my keys, and I'm coming straight down to Union City in my draws and tank top, with no shoes."

Yeah, we laughed about that for a minute. Actually, if Oscar started acting strange, I wouldn't leave, just head to the central part of the house away from windows.

I hung up the phone and went to sleep.

Woke up the next morning, turned on the news, and saw this:

That is a loft community out in Cabbagetown, known as the stacks. I drive by that place from time to time. And I live about 2 miles from Cabbagetown.

Like I said, I watched the cat just to see how he acts when the weather is bad. Why? Because they have acted CRAZY in the past, just prior to some mess going down.

I remember, about 10 years ago, I lived out in Smyrna, a suburb on the west side of metro Atlanta, and I was in bed with my man, and the doggone cats, Oscar and Jeremy, jumped on the bed. They were both wide-eyed like their eyes had been dialated. Every hair on their body was standing on end. They would not move if shushed away, just standing their petrified.

There was a tornado warning, and the city sirens were sounding. Then the power went dead.

"Stupid cats," I remember saying. We didn't care about the power going out. We were going to sleep anyway.

Woke up the next morning, and a tornado had struck... a half-mile from our apartment. And it tore up, completely destroyed everything at a major intersection: A gas station, a strip mall, a furniture store, and a car dealership.

We were like "No wonder the cats were acting crazy."

Another time, a few years ago, when I was living in Collie Park, my alarm clock sounded. I got up to get ready for work. One of the cats jumped on the bed. Jeremy was wide-eyed, looking crazy. I stared at him for a moment. I listened for rain, thundering, lightning, and didn't hear anything. And besides, the weatherman had said it would be sunny that day. Again, I shushed him away, but he wouldn't move. I mean, this cat was looking terrified as all get out.

Moments later, the apartment shook real hard. It was like a really hard vibration, for about 3 seconds. I thought to myself that the dude next door had through his girlfriend into the wall. (I had heard them arguing the day before. I muttered to myself about how stupid he was, and how he shouldn't be jumping on that chick.

Well, I turned on the news, as I do every morning while I'm getting ready for work.

Turns out that it was an earthquake, the center of which was in Alabama. And it was the first time that an earthquake had hit Atlanta. My goodness.

I looked at Jeremy. "So you knew some mess was about to go down, didn't you boy?"

Hmm. Let's just say that the Oldgirl is superstitious and observes the kitties behavior.

My sister said she got calls at midnight on Friday. My room is downstairs, and she is upstairs. She came downstairs to check on me during that time.

"You were knocked out, Lisa," she said.
"Hell yeah. Oscar was sleep, so I went to sleep. Where was Kramer [Hen-Dog's cat, and our permanent house guest]?"
"He was laying in front of my door sleep," she said.
"Well, you should've turned around and went back to sleep."
"Why?"
"Because cats know everything."

She laughed. But I'm just superstitious like that.

I had a book club meeting in Midtown on Saturday, and I drove through downtown to get home. Man, it was wild. Fallen trees and light poles. Traffic lights bent up and twisted around, all messed up. 2 of the major skyscrapers were looking crazy. I was telling a friend that it looked like Godzilla had ran through.

There were conventions and sporting events going on in downtown ATL. There were A LOT of people downtown that night. It is amazing that there were no fatalities.

I drove through Cabbagetown, and it looked a mess. There were blue tarps on roofs left and right. I have a homegirl who lives down there. I did a drive-by early Sunday morning on my way to the store, and her street was just fine. Looks like everything happened a block or so away from her.

One person I do respect is my mayor Shirley Franklin. She was on the case, had news conferences and explained what the city plans were. The clean-up effort was in full effect early Saturday morning.

Shirley Franklin for president! Yeah!

She always handles business when some crises ish goes down. Always.

Anyway, my hood, P-town, was all good. Rained alot, that's all. There is a stupid tree that drops a huge branch everytime the weather is bad. That tree didn't even lose any of it's limbs that night.

This was the first time in history that downtown ATL was hit by a tornado. A first.

I'd never heard of a tornado hitting downtown.

Guess I can't say that anymore.