Once again, my community dodged a bullet.

I got home from the Quammen talk (more on that later), flipped on one of the local channels, and found they were running a weather-radar picture and talking in The Tone.

You know, The Tone. The one news/weathercasters use when something really big and really bad has happened.

Eventually it became clear there had been a tornado somewhere. I didn't realize how bad it was until this morning - Lone Grove, which is not far from Ardmore (about 50 miles west of me) was hit.

The tornado was apparently a half-mile wide. Brrrr.

One news station this morning is saying 15 dead; another one, less given to hyperbole, is saying 8 confirmed deaths, so hopefully those other 7 are "unaccounted for" and will turn out to be safe.

We had some pretty huge thunderstorms (and at one point I thought I heard a tree limb come down but could see no evidence of it this morning), but nothing on that order.

They had to suspend the search for people last night because debris and downed power lines made searching unsafe. (I guess the answer in a case like that is, if you're somewhere even marginally safe, you stay put until the searchers come to find you). I assume they're back at it now as the sun has just come up.