Have you heard of derechos?

There was a tornadoe warning in the area south of where I live this evening. As I was driving home, I was thinking what if it was right here where I am now while I'm in my car. What would I do? The closest personal experience I've ever had with tornadoes was when a derecho went through my neighborhood in Syracuse, NY. I didn't know there were varieties of tornadoes til I lived through one. A derecho is a severe wind storm that never hits the ground. It goes along the tree line, bending hard wood trees in half and doing tons of damage. Apparently, winds ranged from 77 to 110 miles per hour in the one that passed through our street on labor day weekend, 1998. We had so many trees down in our neighborhood, including two criss crossing our driveway that no one could drive anywhere for several days. It hit in the middle of the night. I can remember hearing a noise like a freight train bearing down on my house. I ran over to my daughter's room and looked out her window. That's when I saw large oak trees down the street bending almost in half from the force of the wind and realized this wasn't a normal thunder storm. The power was out by then and it was pitch black except for the lightening outside. I remember grabbing her out of her crib and running down to the basement in the dark. I'm normally such a klutz I don't know how I made it there so quickly down two flights of stairs. After the storm passed through, everyone walked outside. I can still see my neighbor walking around in his jockey undershorts looking totally dazed like what just happened. We were without power for over a week. We all emptied out our freezers and had one big grill party.