Tornado at work ...

Last evening, as I was preparing my status report for the week - I heard a few sirens in the background. Since I had heard such sirens in the past, I ignored them and continued to work. It being Friday evening, all I wanted was to finish my work and head out. However, the sirens got louder and the next thing I knew was an announcement on the office's public address system, informing us "A tornado has been sighted in the area. Please move to the emergency shelter immediately." So abandoning my work, I walked to the emergency shelter. This place was a stairwell in our office. We stood their for about half an hour - hearing updates of the tornado's progress. It was supposed to sweep all over the Chicago area, moving in from the South-Southwest to the North-Northeast. After a while, when told it was relatively safe to move out, we drove home ... and the status report?? Sigh - It's still pending.

The story of the tornado didn't end there. At about 9:30 pm, I got to know that a friend of mine who was scheduled to fly from St.Louis to Chicago and onward to Delhi - had missed her flight connection! This was at about 10 pm. Off I went to the airport to pick her up. The weather had totally calmed down by then, and it seemed impossible that we had even seen any thunderstorms during the day, let alone a tornado!

As usual - Chicago airport was a mess. The 2 mile drive from the freeway exit to the terminal took 20 minutes. Cars, cabs were all stuck in the bumper to bumper traffic. People waiting on the sidewalks looked harried and tired. Finally, after a crazy search at the Departure and Arrival terminal and some phone calls to find her exact location, we met up. This entire search had taken almost an hour!

Past midnight, parents and significant others back home were informed that she was safe and would be staying at my place. Dinner at IHOP and it was time to finally call it a day ....

Come to think of it, if it were not for incidents like these, how could any of us claim to lead a charmed life? ;)