"There's no place like home!"

My day began with working the registration booth at the NAMI MS convention, and meeting many involved and influential people in the area of mental heath. After all were registered, my friend, Jamie, and I went out for a little lunch and shopping. The sky above the parking lot of the Shoe Gallery looked ominous, black and eery with an unusual feeling in the air. We looked at eachother and remarked on how dangerous it looked. Entering that store I was totally unaware of the bizarre experience I was about to have! A store employee, diligent and serious in her task, rushed us all, customers as well as her fellow employees, to the back of the store, near the bathrooms. There was about 25 or so of us, and as we grouped and huddled together an older black man on my right grabbed my hand and announced he was going to say a word of prayer. Suddenly everyone it seemed was holding hands and as he prayed with a trembling yet vigorous voice, others chanted behind him things like, "yes, lord." Now I am not a religious person, but I was raised strict Southern Baptist, and because of my mixed and confused feelings about this bizarre situation I'd found myself in, I could barely be anxious about my potentially iminent loss of life and limb due to a tornado. The one that was spotted on the ground very near this shoe store I found myself in. When his prayer was finished, as he quietly continued to call out to god, the murmering of the others as we moved into the bathroom began to point my psyche in the direction of self preservation and my adreneline began pumping (gotta love that flight or fight!) Suddenly, as I noticed how terrified others were, I began to feel fear myself. There was a young lady in the bathroom with us, maybe a teenager, I never saw her b/c the power was out, who was very emotional and cried. Poeple were calling loved ones like it was 9/11, spilling out expressions of love, just in case the roof was torn off Shoe Gallery and they were sucked into the atmosphere. There was a roaring noise (when I could hear it over my heartbeat) and also the shotgun spray-sounding hail that hell had unleashed on, in my opinion, one of the best shoe stores in town! After it all died down and we left, we found Ridgeland in complete disarray and traffic impossible. My Dad works for Entergy and told us over 80,000 people in MS were without power, so he'll be a ghost around here until that is settled. He let me in on a little secret, one which I'm thankful I didn't know while I stood skin-to-skin with other shoe shoppers. Most people who die in tornados are crushed by debris, mainly by their roof caving in. That never dawned on me and I went through a very traumatic experience with very little trauma. My worst regret is that they don't carry the brand of shoes I'm desperately searching for! jody