We are fine.

I wrote earlier about my fear of tornadoes. I once drove into a tornadic storm on Interstate 57 between Champaign and Rantoul, Illinois. My fear of dangerous weather intensified when I lived in South Carolina and saw the damage created by Hurricane Hugo.

When I moved to Madison twenty years ago, locals assured me that tornadoes were not likely to hit this area because of the city's proximity to multiple lakes. Foolish myth!* Since we've lived here, tornadoes have hit near us three times: Madison's west side in 2004; Stoughton in 2005; and last night, in Verona.

Mr. Irene and I hadn't fallen asleep yet when the sirens went off yesterday. We're normally cautious when the National Weather Service issues a warning, but this one caught us off guard. We were about to head to the basement only as the storm hit, about three miles south of us.

Madison, Wisconsin, June 2004. This was the view near where Mr. Irene's Parents live.

*UPDATE: A meteorologist discusses the lake myth here.

Related by Marriage: Hurricane Gloria, in Three Takes

Mr. Irene leased a house in the early 1980s near Long Island Sound in suburban New Haven. He lived there with some fellow graduate students from the Biology Department. The house, built in 1918, stood directly on the beachfront. It served as overflow lodging for a tennis and beach resort just a quarter-mile away. The resort, established in 1867, still operates today.

Hurricane Gloria, a meandering storm that crawled up the East Coast for several weeks, made landfall for the third and final time along the Connecticut coast on September 28, 1985. It was the worst hurricane Connecticut had seen in thirty years: its ferocity at landfall was a bit of a surprise. Computer modeling technology then was not what it is now. 

When the hurricane hit, Mr. Irene had just taken off on a flight out of Hartford airport bound for Chicago. He was returning to attend a friend’s wedding, and his flight was one of the last cleared to leave before Gloria’s landfall.

Here is how the shoreline looked at impact, just two miles from Mr. Irene’s Connecticut home.

Branford, Connecticut, October, 1985. Mr. Irene arrived home to find that the wooden, screened-in porch had taken the brunt of Hurricane Gloria’s force.

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Branford, Connecticut, October, 1985. "Tomo," a gentle German Shepard and Collie mix, served as mascot to the graduate-student household. She lived in fear of the simplest thunderstorms, and she was relieved when the hurricane ended.

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Branford, Connecticut, Spring, 2013. The house, today.

Hurricane Havoc

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Charleston, South Carolina, October 1989. I visit the city one month after Hurricane Hugo's arrival.

"Kiss My / Grits"

Charleston, South Carolina, November 1989. A sign encourages shoppers to visit the shopping district in the aftermath of Hurricane Hugo.

Pirates Courtyard

During the two years that I lived in Columbia, South Carolina, Mr. Irene often flew down for a visit. One weekend we drove to Charleston. Because I had grown up in Chicago, I was not accustomed to seeing so many historical buildings in an American city. During that time, I also was an historian, and my area of focus was medieval, Mediterranean piracy.

Charleston is full of pirate-themed tourist attractions. I nonetheless was quite charmed when Mr. Irene and I stumbled on the Pirates Courtyard: 

Charleston, South Carolina, September 4, 1989. I stop at the Pirates Courtyard, on Church Street.

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Charleston, South Carolina, November 1989. I returned to the same spot, shortly after Hurricane Hugo struck the city.