After all the storm warnings that have been issued for the last few months, I’ve been lucky.

Amazingly I never even lost power.

Well, my luck ran out this week.

The tornado that came ‘a calling Tuesday showed up at my back door – literally.

I was at the house working from home and received a storm warning on my phone.

I don’t work with the television on, but decided it might be a good idea to turn it on and see what was happening.

WLBT was tracking the storm and from the looks of the map, it was getting mighty close to Vicksburg.

At that point I decided it would be prudent to leave my workspace and go downstairs.

I went to turn the TV on in the kitchen, but before I could the power went out.

It was then I decided to step out the back door to see what I could see.

You know how it is with storms; we always want to check it out and see for ourselves how bad it’s getting.

Isn’t that just crazy?

Well, on Tuesday it got bad.

I was making my way to the edge of the garage when a big gust of wind caused the patio door to slam shut.

I had propped it open, allowing for air to flow through because the garage floor was sweaty from all the humidity in the air.

I had used a garden bucket to keep the door open, but it proved to be no match for the wind.

As it began blowing more forcefully into the garage it was then I decided I better head for safety, so I ran inside with my heart racing and made my way to the bathroom. It’s an interior room in my house.

I climbed in the tub and hunkered down.

My heart continued to race since I could hear the wind blowing and then all of the sudden I heard a noise. It was a loud thud. I thought a tree must have fallen on the house, so I covered my head with my arms.

I was worried that the roof could fall in on me.

I remained in my fetal position with my arms protecting my head until it became quiet.

I climbed out of the tub and headed to the back door. When I opened it the wind seemed to still be blowing hard, so I ran back to the bathtub.

I waited there for a couple more minutes and then once again climbed out.

For the third time I made my way to the back door and when I opened it and stepped out into the garage, I couldn’t believe what I saw.

It looked like a bomb had gone off in my yard.

Trees were down everywhere. Electrical poles were snapped and lines were laying all down the driveway.

There was also a fire in the yard.

It was then I began to really go into panic mode.

I could smell wires burning and was worried the fire would travel through the ones inside the house and catch it on fire.

My oldest daughter called and I became hysterical on the phone.

She asked if she should call 911 and I said yes.

This went on until the fire finally died out.

It’s Thursday and even though I don’t have power back and my yard looks a fright, in the big scheme of things I think I was still pretty lucky.

I’m sitting here writing this column.