By: Mason Fontaine, Grade 8
The Storm That Changed My Life
It was a normal morning in Cape Cod Massachusetts, my family and I were at our rented
house. It was about an hour before the tornado and the moms were out shopping at Christmas Tree
Shops. The dads were just getting back from grocery shopping. I was lying in my bed along with my
sister and cousins who were either on their electronics or drawing. My phone went off saying that
there was a tornado warning for our county. I went downstairs to tell the dads about the news. They
claimed it was from last night when I also got a Tornado Warning on my phone. I proved them wrong
by showing them the time and date issued. My dad told us to go play Just Dance which is what I wanted
to do.
As us kids were playing Just Dance and I was...losing we all knew something more than a
thunderstorm was going on. Outside the wind and trees blowing, swaying like a hula dancer swaying
in the Hawaiian breeze. My dad had the bright idea of saying,” we should probably go downstairs
now.” My Uncle Jay responded by saying, ”Yep.” They came downstairs to check on us. Soon after
that we lost power. It was at that point I knew something bigger and stronger than what I thought was
above us. I began to start stressing out about this, but I told myself to not cry and to be the big, brave
wolf. My sister on the other hand immediately started bawling her eyes out. I went over to the door in
our basement an saw a scary sighting, a tree uprooted that took out powerlines and landed on a small
house. This as with other houses sounds normal but the problem was from what we knew and could
see there was no way the people inside could get out. The tree was blocking there front entrance. I felt
helpless for the person inside since I couldn’t do anything.
The storm appeared to be dying down and the dads went to go upstairs and check for damages.
While us kids were downstairs we were talking about how seeing the aftermath of this would be awesome.
My dad came back yelling, “EVERYONE GET YOUR SHOES ON!” My sisters eyes began
flooding with tears again. We tried calling 911 to tell them about the gas leak but it took about 3 tries
with different phones. There was no cell service in the area because of the power being out. After calling
911 and telling them abut the gas leak, we were thinking of an evacuation plan. We couldn’t go
out the downstairs door because of the gas leak being outside of the “basement” outside on the road.
We all agreed that we would book it out to the front door and run up the street. As we were running up
the street in my flip flops I took some photos of what possibly cut our power when we lost it. We finally
made it to the top of our street and we shouted to others warning everyone about the gas leak and
to be cautious. It was about 10 minutes after we ran when my Grandfather came from his appointment.
We informed him about the area and told us to get in his van and wait. He parked it on the side of the
road so emergency crews could get by. It was about a half hour after the tornado and more crews began
to arrive to clear the neighborhood. As one person in a front loader came to clear the road, he
started forcefully pushing the branches into a car. The girl that most likely owned the car started yelling
at the person to stop. The crewman man said, “Sorry for your loss!” as he pushed all the leaves and
branches into the car. All I felt throughout the entire day was that butterflies in your stomach feeling.
We were all waiting around when the ambulance next to us was shouting on the intercom,” are there
any civilians in the area that need help? If so yell!” about 2 minutes later the person on the ambulance
intercom shouted,” EVERYONE EVACUATE NOW!!.”We all started freaking out because we were
all expecting a huge explosion. We left the area and I only thought of one thing, and one thing only,
that I knew I was not acting like myself.