Cheating Death Once Again

Whew! That was a close one...

WAH-H-H, WAH-H-H, WAH-H-H

WAH, WAH, WAH

I knew it couldn't be good, but it didn't make sense to panic when I didn't know what the blaring horns meant. There were few people around in the Denver Airport that night, at least at the end terminal opposite where I arrived from Dallas. I had just settled in for my two hour layover.

I was entertaining myself near the large windows by watching the intense lightening, strong winds and horizontal rain. I figured if there was something I needed to do I would hear an announcement over loud speakers.

Again, the wah, wah of the horns. It may have been Morse Code, but surely an announcement would instruct us if something was amiss so I enjoyed the force of nature and was grateful I didn't need to go outside in the storm. After several sets of warning blares an airline employee came running by yelling at us to get away from the windows and into the shelters because of a tornado. Yikes!

I began walking quickly to the restrooms and sure enough, there on a little sign near the entrance it proclaimed the restroom was a tornado shelter. Tornadoes in Denver?

The calm people outnumbered by far the flustered and worried so an orderly chaos prevailed. I made myself comfortable in the sink area and immediately called Angel to see if she would buy me a swimsuit if a tornado hit. This is a long running joke between the two of us. (Angel, I'm a size 6 he-he)

After 20 minutes or so we heard announcements being made in the terminal, but they were not audible in the restroom/tornado shelter. Soon "the word" was being passed from the front to the back and when it got to me, the people were quite panicked and said we were being moved downstairs to safety. I was able to offer a little voice of calm to a couple of handicapped people, as they tried to maneuver oxygen tanks and wheelchairs out of the circular entrance to the shelter. I made sure everyone was out before I left, but when we came out there was no one directing or moving people and it seemed that the threat was over.

My mood could best be described as amused. I was not fearful at all, and honestly doubted the reality of a tornado in Denver. I did do my "Worse Case Scenario" thinking that Angel's family (who I had made the trip for) and Dan (who took a different flight home for business) would feel responsible if I died...but I trusted that Andi would reassure them I didn't blame them and it wasn't their fault...that's as fatalistic as I could conjure up and I realized that "Hey, I really am calm in a crisis", good for me!

I'm sure that the spirit blessed me with a peace beyond my "natural man" so I determined to be a strength to anyone I could during the experience. Again the horns blasted so the few travelers and I headed back wondering why they would give an "all clear" if things were not clear. Over the loud speaker, before I could reach the shelter, "all clear" was declared so I returned to the seating. One more panicked employee ran and yelled for us to take cover but the announcements contradicted him and he soon stopped to listen.

The threat of a tornado seems to loosen the tongues of fellow passengers and now instead of sitting quietly in our own little worlds we began talking to each other. The woman next to me worried that our flight would be late, and hoped she would arrive at her dying mother's bedside before she passed away that evening as the doctor predicted. That pretty much put my desire to get to bed in perspective. I tried to alternately comfort and distract her and we formed a bond that strangers do in such circumstances without exchanging names.

Our plane was diverted to another airport, delayed then finally arriving. Eventually we landed in Portland safely after a 4+ hour delay just after 3am. Note to self: Take only direct flights to/from Dallas.

The news confirmed there were tornadoes in the Denver area. So, I have cheated death once again! Oh, the things we will endure for a good blog topic...