Right before 8:30, the air got that weird metallic smell and the sky over Oak Ridge went bruise-green. The wind snapped our wind chimes sideways and I heard a deep rumble that wasn’t traffic. Then the first marble-sized hail pinged off the grill lid and the dog shot under the table.
My phone blared an alert, but all it said was “severe thunderstorm.” I looked toward the water tower and saw a gray sheet marching across the ball fields, lit by spiderweb lightning. The gutters overflowed in about three minutes, and our street looked like a shallow river…