"Run For Cover"
By: Christie A.
7th grade
Northley Middle School
Aston, Pa
In the spring of 1997, I was caught in a tremendous hailstorm. My mom had just taken me to my softball game that was supposed to start a few minutes later. We were on the field practicing when the storm struck. The hail started out at about the size of peas but eventually reached the size of Ping-Pong balls. We had all been rushed into the dugout but the wind was still blowing the hail into the dugout. Everyone on or around the field had to get into one of the two dugouts because they could have been seriously injured if they hadn't.
When it was all over the game had been cancelled so my mom and I went back to the car to go home. In the parking lot, many of the cars had been dented or had cracks in their windshields. Some of the cracks were up to a foot long. The force of the storm was so bad that while we were on our way home we saw houses that had siding chipped off or even windows broken because of the large hail. This storm caused hundreds of dollars in damage to homes and cars. Not to mention the fear of being in only a fence dugout with hail blowing at you the whole time. People that were not fast enough at getting into shelter got black eyes and bruises on them. It was an extremely exciting yet extremely frightening experience.