Lori was in Atlanta for a seminar and after the last day, a bunch of the attendees had gathered in the hotel lounge for drinks and food. They had chatted into the evening. Some people had gone out for a formal dinner but Lori and a handful of people had been content with the finger foods offered by the lounge.
It was past 10 PM when Lori made her way to her room. She'd only been in there about 20 minutes when a paper got slipped under her door. She thought it was unusual for the final tab to come this early, they usually did that around 3 am. As she picked up the tab, she found a note attached.
"Dear Guests, the tornado watch has been upgraded to a warning for the next several hours. Should the weather get worse and an imminent tornado warning issued, we would ask that you make your way to one of our five stairwells and / or to the meeting halls on the main floor. All of these locations are built to withstand severe weather including the top tornadoes. Should we need to evacuate to these areas, a message will be issued over the hotel phones. Thank you."
Lori watched the storms being tracked on the weather channel in her hotel room for a while. Eventually, she gave in to the exhaustion and went to bed. However, just in case they had to evacuate the rooms, she'd prepared a few things and wore a camisole and shorts to bed instead of her night gown which was rather flimsy. She also put her windbreaker close to the bed so she could slip it on in a hurry if need be.
The evacuation alarm sounded around 12:30 and a voice came over the phone speaker "Ladies and Gentlemen, this is Tom Greenwood, the night shift manager. Our area has been put on an imminent tornado warning. To ensure your safety, we need for all our guests to gather either in the meeting halls or in the stairwells. Please do not use the elevators at this time as power outages are possible at any time. Please do not leave the building. Please proceed now."
Lori grabbed her wind breaker and put it on as she slipped into her flats before also grabbing her purse and the backpack she'd prepared. As she made her way to the door, she slung the purse strap over her head and across her chest. She then put the backpack on her shoulders and headed out the door. Several other patrons were also headed towards the stairs.
They all filed down towards the bottom. There, a hotel employee asked them to sit down in the stairs, saying that they were safe there. Lori took her back pack off and sat with her back to the wall on one of the landings. She put her back pack under her knees and her purse on her lap and waited.
At the bottom of the stairwell, a metal door that would normally open to the parking lot was held shut with ropes as well as the regular latch. They started hearing something pounding against the door. Not like a knock, more liked pellets hitting the door. Lori wasn't the only one with a questioning look on her face. The hotel employee said
"Relax folks, this is simply hail hitting the door. We're very safe in here. Unfortunately, I can't really speak for our vehicles but at least we're all safe."
The thunder was so loud, they could not only hear it but also feel it rumbling. While this was no different than thunder in the mountains, the cacophony of thunder and hail against the metal door was overbearing. Lori wrapped her arms around her knees and started shaking.
That's when the power decided to go off. Lori inhaled sharply at the sudden darkness. Then, the emergency lights came on but they were not as bright as the regular lights.
An older gentleman, seeing Lori tremble, got up and came to sit next to her. "Are you scared or cold?"
Lori looked at him and said "Bit of both actually."
"Would you feel better if I held you?"
Lori nodded and the man put his arm around her shoulders and held her close. With his other hand, he cupped her face and pulled her against his chest. Lori kept trembling for a while and the man whispered "It's okay baby girl, we're safe here. I've lived through tornadoes before. It's not as bad as it sounds."
Lori put her own hand on his arm and was amazed at the contrast. Her white hand was almost gleaming against his dark brown skin. The man would have been in his late forties, early fifties judging from the amount of white in his curly hair and the lines on his face. His hands were big and strong yet gentle and soft. Lori felt herself relax against him, even though he was a stranger.
They stayed like that for over an hour with the hard rain alternating with hail pounding the metal door. The man kept saying soothing things to Lori, stroking her hair and caressing her back.
Then, it quieted down and some people started getting up. The hotel employee spoke up "Ladies and gentlemen, may I ask you to please stay put for another 15 – 20 minutes, just to make sure the danger has passed?"
Lori stayed tucked against the black man who had been so kind to her. A while later, the door to the lobby opened and another hotel employee poked his head in and said "All clear! Thank you folks! You may go back to your rooms now. Unfortunately, we still don't have power so the stairs are your only option. If you need assistance, please let us know."
People were getting up and going back up the stairs. Lori didn't move. She figured that it was better to be safe in the stairwell than in her bedroom. The old man nudged her a bit "It's safe to go back to our rooms now, baby girl."
"Is it really? I mean, how do they know this isn't just the proverbial eye of the storm?"
The man hugged her close and kissed her forehead. "The weather trackers have radars and all this technology and they relay the information to everyone. The hotel manager probably has a battery operated radio. He wouldn't let us return to our rooms if there was still a risk. He wouldn't risk a lawsuit, would he?"
"I guess not."
"Ready to go back?"
Lori straightened up and looked at the man who'd held her through the worst of the storm. "Thank you."
"So where are you from?"
"I'm from Montana where the mountains prevent the possibility of tornadoes. This was my first tornado."
