Take Me To Post Comment Form With Severe Weather Awareness Week winding down, schools in Hall County held a tornado drill this morning (Friday).

In an occurrence that seems to happen so often it's become a cliche, the drill was originally scheduled for Wednesday, but it was postponed due to the threat of severe weather.

I hope those students learned some safety measures that might one day save their lives. We were reminded Tuesday night of how dangerous storms can be, when dozens of tornadoes tore through the Southeast, killing about 60 people.

Georgia was mercifully spared. But Tuesday's storms hit close to home for me. When I heard on the news that several tornadoes had touched down near my hometown of Memphis, I became concerned about my relatives who still live there.

Then I saw photos online of a warehouse that had been partially demolished by a twister in Southaven, a suburb of Memphis just across the state line in Mississippi. The location of this warehouse is just a few blocks from where my older sister lives.

I called to see if she was okay. Her house had been spared, but I didn't know that her son-in-law (my oldest niece's husband) is employed at that warehouse, and he was there when the tornado hit.

Brett managed to escape injury. He was in the part of the warehouse that was not destroyed, and he hunkered down and rode out the storm. But he said he had never been so terrified. He and my niece Emily are expecting their first baby any day now, and all Brett could think about was that if he died, the child would grow up without a father.

After the tornado passed through, Brett went to my sister's house. But Mother Nature wasn't finished yet. There were tornado warnings all over the area, and another potentially deadly storm was approaching Southaven. My sister's family all huddled together in the hallway and prayed until the storm blew over.

Fortunately, everything turned out all right. But I think about all those victims who died Tuesday, and I realize how quickly one storm can change people's lives forever. Emily and her husband "dodged a bullet," but how can any of us know if there's a bullet somewhere out there with our name on it?

All we can do is heed the National Weather Service's warnings, find the safest shelter, and hope for the best.

Debbie Gilbert