[Granville-Hough] 6 Feb 2009 - Storm Pits 1

[Trustees for Granville W. Hough]

Date: Fri, 06 Feb 2009 16:54:54 -0800
From: Granville W Hough <gwhough at oakapple.net>
Subject: StormPits1 - 6 Feb 2009

STORM PITS (as recalled by Harold Hopkins of Mize), Part 1

Trust in God, but keep your powder dry! Oliver Cromwell is supposed to 
have told his troops before one battle. Around Mize when I was growing 
up, people expected their Creator to look after them when they needed 
protection, but when a bad storm cloud came up most of them were smart 
enough to have an extra ace in the hole: a good, deep storm pit.

It was just plain good sense to make it as difficult as possible for the 
high winds to scoop you up along with your house, or parts of it, and 
take you somewhere you didnt especially want to go. I dont know that 
there was ever a killer tornado in our town itself, but you didn't have 
to travel far to see where one had touched down briefly and leveled 
trees, houses, and outbuildings in a swath of destruction visible for 
years afterward. One look made all your backyard excavating seem 
worthwhile. The raging of the elements can be both mysterious and 
beautiful but it takes a stout heart to forget safety and stop to admire 
it all, sepecially for those who have knowledge at first hand about what 
a storm can do to life and property.

One of the most vivid memories I have out of childhood was the dash to 
the storm pit through the wind and rain and thunder and lightning. Storm 
pits were dark, damp, smelly, cheerless places that you avoided as long 
as possible when you decided that the beast roaring about you was 
getting ready to flatten everything. Sometimes you put off the trip 
until it seemed downright foolish to wait another minute, and by then 
the wind might be pretty high and the sky pure electric.

On those dark days and nights I remember my parents bundling the younger 
ones, sometimes two at a time underarm, and dashing through the wind and 
wet to the storm pit, while I, the oldest, ran ahead or behind. It was 
scariest to be aroused from deep sleep amidst the noise and commotion of 
a windstorm by parents who themselves might have been awake for only a 
minute or two. When this happened the run for the storm pit was usually 
made without anybody dressing for the occasion.

Some ground was unsuitable for excavating holes for storm pits and not 
every family in Mize had one. Those whod did have one usually extended 
standing invitations to pit-less neighbors to drop in anytime. If there 
was anything more comforting than to have a good hole to go to during a 
storm, it was to have plenty of company with you. Neighbors might arrive 
before or after you, depending on their own judgements of the storms 
seriousness. Most houses were some distance apart at Mize and were not 
equipped with telephones, so there was no time for consulting, as there 
might be now, about when it was time to make the dash for the storm pit. 
Tornado type storms often occur so suddenly and at such odd times that 
even today radio and television are not very helpful in warning you 
whether you ought to take refuge in the ground.

A storm pit, or storm cellar as some call it, is an excavation in the 
ground that you hope is deep enough for the wind to leave you untouched, 
even if it should demolish your house. All the excavated part except 
room to enter at the front was normally covered by a horizontal layer of 
small, peeled logs or heavy timbers with their ends sunk into level 
ground at both sides of the excavation. Over this was a low structure 
two or three feet high at the front with a pitched tin roof sloping 
almost to ground at the rear. There was a set of crude wooden steps or a 
short ladder down into the pit and a hinged door. The floor was almost 
always bare earth. Permanent accomodations varied, but most storm pits 
had enough rough benches, chairs, or other materials that the occupants 
wouldnt have to sit on the damp, cold earth. Since the horizontal 
timbers across the hole were in contact with the earth they were usually 
cresoted against termites and rot. Their intention was to keep you from 
being sucked out of the hole by the wind and to shelter you from falling 
debris should the low roof be caught and blown away. (to be continued)