Braving the Tornado

First let me tell you that I do not have a fear of tornadoes. Maybe I should, but for some reason I don't. We have lived here for almost 7 years and only in the past two years have I actually done something to prepare when we are under a tornado warning. I also use the word prepare very loosely. My son, Owen, has a huge fear of tornadoes among other things. He talks about tornadoes all the time and even if the wind picks up and the skies get dark he gets nervous. I think it started when they had to sit in the hallway of their school in the duck and cover position for almost an hour earlier this year. He also has seen pictures of the destruction that tornadoes have left. As soon as we started to watch the news and they put Marietta up on the map he started to get upset and started to cry. The news was saying it was bad and to be prepared so as it started to get closer we cleared out the closet under the stairs and debated weather to go into the crawl space. This whole time Chris and I are completely calm and Owen is freaking out. The tornado starts to move closer and all of a sudden they pull up a map of where it is going to hit and our street is on there. My phone starts ringing and I start getting text and Owen is now over the top upset (by the way the other boys don't seem the least bit phased as you can tell by the picture above). We get the boys into the closet and go get Kyle up. We give them the tablet to watch a movie and Chris and I continue to watch the news outside the closet. Owen is crying "Get in the closet! Get in the closet! Tell the weather man to stop saying the tornado is on the ground! I don't like that!" We are trying to soothe him but nothing is working. As he is getting more and more upset Connor looks at me and very calmly says "Mom, are we going to die?" I tell him no and he then says "Owen we aren't going to die!" and continues to watch his movie on the tablet. We finally all move into the closet and through the tears Owen says "I have to go to the bathroom!" After about 10 minutes in the closet and not hearing anything we check the news and it had passed us and we were very fortunate to of not been effected. About a mile down the road is where it hit and there was damage. To say the least it was an eventful night! I will say that I do think we need to rethink our closest plan as maybe be a little more prepared!