Take Cover Now
Once upon a time in my part of the world, we had snow days in winter. They are still built into the school calendar, although last year, we didn’t use any…not for snow. School was cancelled for weather like tonight’s excess of rain and wind. We have not made the shift to calling them rain days. We have not faced the fact that our world is turning upside down.
The first month of school has rituals and protocols. Classrooms come up with a set of rules that every member agrees to follow. Students generate hopes and dreams that are posted in classrooms. Teachers set professional goals for themselves. The roster of duties is assigned to non-classroom teachers, such as myself. Procedures for state-mandated safety drills are reviewed and practiced. The most familiar of these is the fire drill. An ear-piercing alarm goes off on every floor; teachers grab green side/red side card; classrooms empty as students file out as quickly and quietly as possible, line up outside in designated spots and wait for the principal’s all-clear signal. Teachers hold up the red side if a student is missing, green side if all charges are present.
This year, one of my students whispered to me that in his country they did not practice fire drills, but drills for…here he paused, searching for the word. “Teremotos?” I offered. “Teremotos,” he confirmed. A nearby classmate inquired, “What are teremotos?” My student and I responded in whispered unison, “Earthquakes.” He then crouched down, cupped hands over his head, before looking up to explain, “Because when the bricks fall it’s better they hit your hands than your head.”
The combined words and actions sent me skidding across decades to my first year living overseas, when I was barely a year older than he is now. I remembered standing with my face to a brick wall in the elementary school hall, hands pressed to skull, thinking there was no way my small bones could protect me from death by collapsing building, yet still doing what I was told, heeding rules that made little sense to my 9-year-old mind.
That same day of the fire drill, just after getting home — hadn’t had time to make a cup of tea or give my husband a proper hug — his phone suddenly emitted the long beep radio stations send out before an emergency broadcast test. “Tornado in the area, TAKE COVER NOW!” bleated the text. We looked at each other blankly. We do not live in a tornado zone. We do not live near the coast where remnants of hurricanes pass through between June and November. But this is the era of climate change; tornados are being spotted, even touching ground in my part of the world now. The fact that it’s never happened before is no longer relevant. It is happening now, and we have to respond, like it or not.
After a moment’s uncertainty, my husband and I descended into the basement. “This is the part where we realize we should have prepared an emergency kit and didn’t,” I remarked ruefully. He set up his computer atop of the washing machine while I sat down on the steps. There wasn’t much else to do but wait.
That afternoon, elementary schools in my district had their first staff meeting, where we reviewed safety protocols. In the event of a hostile intruder, we now have to be prepared to make the decision whether to stay locked in our rooms or try to make a break for it. We’ve not been offered any guidelines as to how we are to make this call, a decision that could literally cost children in our care their lives.
Take cover now. Or not. The choice is ours. A choice we have to live with for the rest of our lives, assuming we have lives left to live. Too much for one pair of hands to hold, yet I’m holding it, trying not to let any of it slip through my fingers. We are expected to decide in the moment of crisis whether it makes more sense to flee or to cower down in the corner, as my husband and I huddled in the basement that evening, waiting to see if a tornado might descend and leave us with nothing.
In the previous century, my first husband and I took shelter in our walk-in closet, spacious enough for the two of us to sleep on the carpeted floor. I never minded sleeping there; it felt cozy and safe on tornado nights. I knew then and know now that that feeling was a delusion. Our one-floor rental, bordering a tobacco field on one side, an interstate on the other, could have been taken out in an instant — there was nothing standing in its way — but it never happened. During the two years we lived there, we spent more than a few nights in the closet, along with our small dog, and always wakened to a beautiful day. The day after a storm is often heartbreakingly gorgeous, bright blue skies and sunshine smiling equally on the devastation and the beauty of what’s left behind.
Tonight we are under a high wind warning in the middle of December; ten years ago, this would have been a blizzard. Teachers and students alike would have been rejoicing at the prospect of a snow day. There is nothing joyful about tonight’s weather. I feel the need to take cover — not only from the rain and wind, but from what feels like all kinds of dark forces gathering and threatening — and I don’t know what can truly protect me. In many ways I am still that small girl, hands cupped over skull, pressing face into the bricks, hoping and praying they don’t come crashing down to bury me in the rubble of the world I once knew.
