adventures in dorm living

Some rather significant thunderstorms rolled through Chicagoland this evening. They arrived, in fact, just as Aaron and I were walking back from dinner. We stopped to grab some books I needed out of my car, and just as we rounded the corner on the way from the car to the dorm the heavens opened and we found ourselves caught in a torrential downpour. Soaked and laughing, we made it to our floor and went to our respective apartments.

Since it did look pretty nasty outside, I opened my laptop to check the weather and was surprised to learn that we were under a tornado warning. Interesting. Pretty soon my roommates and I started to hear this strange sound, sort of like an ambulance siren but not exactly, and no emergency vehicle was anywhere to be seen. After some discussion amongst ourselves and with the guys in Aaron's apartment, we learned that was in fact - as we suspected - the tornado siren.

Lovely.

The thing about the dorm is that there is glass on every wall and no basement. This does not leave many storm-safe locations. I went downstairs with Aaron to check with the front-desk person about what we were supposed to do. We stepped off the elevator and found, much to our surprise, that there was no one there. This is highly unusual, as the desk is staffed 24/7. We looked at the map on the counter, trying to figure out our location in relation to the reported tornado/funnel cloud activity, and realized that we were closer to the action than we thought. Yikes. About then, the front desk dude walked up and reported that he had been hiding in the bathroom, as per instructions he had received from the higher-ups. He explained that yes, our best options were, in fact, just the bathrooms within each apartment.

Aaron and I returned upstairs. By this time, it seemed that the absolute worst of it had passed, although I think we did hear the sirens again a time or two. However, no hiding in the bathroom was deemed necessary.

By shortly after 7, things had calmed down enough that we were able to go over to VanderCook to carry on with the practicing and work planned for the evening. Things had pretty much returned to normal around here. Well, except for the water leaking into the VanderCook basement, where our instrument lockers and all the cello/bass cabinets are located. And that bizarre color of the sky as the sun was setting.

Just another night here in Chicago! Back to work...