A Tornado-force Wind in Florence

I heard something and I thought I was dreaming, I looked around in the dark, tried to lift my sleepy head. I saw the clock on the bed side table it was still 3am early morning.  I should not go back to sleep, I thought, as I would be late for school at 7am. I heard the sound of the wind blew really hard as if it swirled in front of our bedroom window. The window glasses were shaking and made a lot of noise. My head told me to stay awake but my eyes were too heavy to stay open. I felt asleep again although I remembered I could still hear the sound of the wind, swirled, hurled things up, banged windows and windows’ shutters. Storm, I thought, maybe the school would have to close today due to this hard wind, and I fell asleep again.

A moment later I woke up with eyes open wide when the glasses of our bedroom window shook and made such a loud noise as if they would shatter in no time soon. I heard things fell and the sound of our plastic buckets hit the fence of the balcony. I remembered my laundry clips, many must have been blown away already, I thought. Oh well, a reason to buy new laundry clips. The swirling sound of the wind continued until it was time for us to get up our bed and get ready for school.  It happened that I was scheduled to substitute a Physic teacher who took his personal day on that very day. I was grateful Jos didn’t have to go alone through a hard win that morning.  

We decided to go by our motorino to anticipate a traffic jam. The wind still blew really hard when we walked out our front door.  As we predicted, there was a traffic jam about a kilometer before we reached Piazzale Michelangelo.  We had no trouble to continue until we arrived at the turn across the Piazzale, when the wind blew so hard when we made a turn and made our motorino a little shaky.  Just a little, thanks to God! We continued our ride until we finally arrived near the school gate. The situation at that time reminded me of the hailstorm in last September, only worst, as more trees fell down. We saw city workers worked hard to cut a huge stem of a fallen tree and tried to move from it the middle of the road. Soon we heard the road was temporary closed for safety reason.  The city was in emergency state. 

According to some local news :

A wave of tornado-force winds leaved a trail of injuries, uprooted trees, and damaged buildings in its wake. It ripped through the windows of the 15th-century Sagrestia Vecchia (Old Sacristy). The city was in emergency state. Five people were injured when part of a school near the town of Empoli, firefighters were hard at work in the city of Pisa and surrounding areas.  Rain and wind also damaged homes and businesses in and around Lucca, authorities said. 

Storm in a five day series came down hard on the Florence area. Wind gusts in excess of 60 miles an hour were recorded in town and nearly two inches of rain fell. Damage in some specific locations was severe, but overall the area came through relatively unscathed. Crews spent the day cleaning up broken tree tops and other debris that had blown into streets. There were reports of trees down in roads, across driveways and in some cases on buildings.

Many students as well as some teachers couldn't  reach school that day as some roads were closed. The Head of school announced that the school was closed and students who were at school already must be picked up by parents to go back home. The pick up point were set at Piazza Tacca, parents and buses were all pooled there. To make sure that all students are picked up by their parents, teachers took turn to accompany students walked down to the pick up point.

The school was also in an emergency state. That morning I noticed one significant difference. I saw everybody (the Head of school, the school principal, teachers, school staffs and one of the Board members) worked together hand in hand through this situation. There was no show of hierarchy like I often saw among leaders and employees in Indonesia. 

Although the whole situation was intense, we enjoyed it a lot. After all students were sent home, we also went home through the traffic jam in the city. We arrived home after a short grocery shopping at Esselunga. Once we got home, we enjoyed our great lunch and a free day at our home sweet home. It was another weather #phenomenon I experienced in Florence!