Rotation in Collierville…

What a bizarre couple of days this has been.  And really really scary.  For me anyway.  We have had a couple of days of really violent weather, if you have watched the Weather Channel anywhere in the country for the last 48 hours, you will know the severity of the weather here in Northwestern Mississippi and the Memphis, TN area.  We don’t have this kind of weather in NJ, tornadoes are a rare occurrence where I come from, but this band of storms produced some  very scary stuff.  All through the class yesterday, we had students posted on NOAA on their Blackberries, and others posted at the windows, which were all cracked, we had an escape plan in place, and while I went along fitting jackets, others were looking at the sky and watching for the signs of a tornado forming.  A call came from the back of the room that a rotation was occurring in Collierville.  All this means nothing to me, I don’t know the geography of Northwestern Mississippi, and I don’t know where any of these towns are.  The violent storm eventually passed, but the rains continued, something like 10 inches in a day.  Floods on the interstates outside of Memphis took out roads, bridges, stranded cars, buried tractor trailers, and all the while, the threat of tornadoes continued.

Last night I sat alone in my hotel room, glued to the Weather Channel, my only connection was the red Tornado Warning band across the bottom of the screen and the occasional posting of the Doppler Radar.  Every so often, the sirens would sound, and the best escape plan I had was the tub in the bathroom.  I put my computer, purse and travel documents there, and hoped for the best.  By 10:30pm the storm had passed again, and I went to bed.  At 1:30am, I woke to the sound of another round of thunder storms, flipping on the Weather Channel, there was the dreaded tornado warnings, within the county I was in, since I had no geographic reference, I found the telephone directory and got something of a county map and could follow the storm track.  The sirens sounded, and continued to sound for 45 minutes.  I just sat and waited for the dreaded sound of a freight train signaling a tornado.  Fortunately I didn’t hear the freight train sound, and I never had to evacuate to the bathtub.  The mattress was too big to pull over me anyway.  The storms finally passed around 3am, and I fell asleep, sort of, and was thrilled to wake in the morning with the promise of some sunshine.  The storms when last I checked were headed for Kentucky, and the northeast.  This is some wicked stuff.

Today’s class brought a much more relaxed feeling, the thought of a tornado bearing down on us had passed, and all the students had to worry about was getting their jackets finished.  They are all working really really hard, and the sun finally came out and a huge sigh of relief was had by all.

My heart goes out to any of you in the path of this storm.  We get storms in NJ, but not usually this violent for two days straight.

I promised photos of the workshop, the studio where the workshop is being held, is over an airplane hanger, with a window wall over looking the planes, all arranged like toys.  I thought how difficult it is to fit a couple of looms in a house, this is ridiculous!  There are five small planes in this hanger, I couldn’t get all five in the photo at once.

The studio itself is the nicest I’ve ever worked in, spacious, full of light, lots of great equipment, and the students are so warm and generous of spirit, they are trying really hard, asking some great questions, and I have a number of young students as well, which is refreshing.  (By handweaving community standards, young is considered under 40, but there are a couple of participants who are way younger than that!)  In spite of the weather issues, I’m having a wonderful time with all of my new southern weaving friends, and we have one more day of the workshop, and I’m on to Jackson, Mississippi for the next round of lectures and a workshop.  A couple of the students are following me down for a marathon week of Daryl Lancaster.

Stay tuned…