Chapter 3: Baptism and Activation of the Vortex
by Sandy Penny
On November 16, 1993, a Tuesday, Sandy awoke to a stormy morning. The rain pelted the house, but she needed to go to work, so she dressed and fed the kids and took them out into the flooded streets. Houston has a habit of flooding at the least little downpour, being barely above sea level. It was nothing to be too concerned about. It was a grueling drive, but Sandy delivered Adam and Andrea safely to their school and headed off to work.
As she got into the car, she switched on the radio, and heard that tornadoes were seen in the area where she worked. And the building was a likely target as it was a high rise in the flat lands. She decided to wait and go to work after the storm subsided. She headed back to Sanctuary to phone the office and let them know. The rain stopped, and Sandy made it home in record time. She parked in the long driveway next to the house and hurried in through the French doors.
After grabbing a cup of leftover coffee, she phoned the office and said she’d be in when the weather broke. They told her to take the day off, that the storms were too severe to risk it. With the unexpected day off, Sandy was humming a tune, happy to have some time to herself. The only other person in the house today was Marilyn who lived in the attic. Sandy grabbed the phone and dialed her friend Juanita for a chat about the weather.
The deluge returned in earnest, pelting everything and blocking out her ability to see what was going on outside. They had only been on the phone a few minutes when a high pitched squealing filled the house. It sounded like a jet plane landing in the driveway. “What the hell is that sound? Sounds like my computer has gone crazy.” Sandy said to Juanita as she checked her office and found nothing happening with her computer.
An Actual Photo from the tornado that hit Sanctuary in 1993.
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE: November 16, 1993
A supercell thunderstorm produced an F1 Tornado out ahead of an advancing squall line. The tornado touched down just north of US Hwy 59 and Louisiana Street in downtown Houston, traveled about two miles along Smith Street and crossed Interstate 45 and into the highrise section of the downtown area. Emergency Management officials reported 26 minor injuries and 30 cars damaged. The major damage was to apartments with roof failures. About 60 windows popped out of the Enron Building, a 95 story office building.
She wandered over to the windows to find out if some kind of siren was going off. She fairly yelled into the phone “Oh my God, it’s a tornado coming down my driveway. Gotta go.” She slammed down the phone and frantically looked for somewhere safe. There are no basements in Houston. With most of the house having floor to ceiling windows, she had no idea where a safe place would be.
Located in the center of the house, the pantry seemed the only option. She closed the door behind her and sat on the floor. She still had lights in the house, so it couldn’t be too bad. She flinched at all the banging and crashing, and suddenly remembered, “Oh my God, Marilyn is in the attic.” She opened the door and yelled, “Marilyn, come downstairs, there’s a tornado.” Marilyn had already gotten up and was in the second floor bathtub. She heard the yelling and lifted her head out of the water.
Debris was flying around outside the second floor window like a scene from the Wizard of Oz. She grabbed her robe and ran down the stairs to find Sandy peeking out of the pantry. She joined her there until the sounds of the storm subsided. They were both certain that all the windows in the house would be shattered. Finally the rain stopped, the sun broke through the clouds, and they knew the storm had passed.
“Wow, that was crazy,” Marilyn said as they headed for the front porch to survey the damage. The house seemed to be pretty much intact. Not even one window broken. It was amazing.
Opening the front door, they were shocked at the devastation that had so thankfully spared them. Huge trees spanned the streets, broken electrical wires crackled and hissed. The apartments at the end of the block were missing the entire roof, and the apartments behind them were smashed almost flat. The rear window of Sandy’s car looked like a network of spider web, but had held. The swimming pool was filled with debris from the damaged apartments. But they seem to have been missed almost completely. The power was still on.
Sandy and Marilyn made their way up to the attic and found the skylight had imploded, and water had poured in, but all in all, a small thing. If Marilyn had been in her bed, the glass from the skylight would have sprayed her, and who knows what kind of injuries she would have suffered.
One chimney was missing, and that was the entire damage to the house. It was a miracle, really, with all those windows that no more damage had been sustained. Sandy said a prayer of gratitude and tried to calm herself down. She was still pumping adrenaline even though the danger was over.
As they sat on the porch swing, watching their neighbors emerge from their homes, a news truck pulled up and began interviewing those who had witnessed the storm. Sandy told her story, and it made the news. The next day, Sandy took another day off from work just to recuperate from the stress. As she sat at the kitchen table having a cup of Tension Tamer tea, there was a knock at the front door.
A woman in her 50s looked a little bit embarrassed, but told her that this house had belonged to her grandfather, that he had built it in the 40s. She had a photograph of the house with snow around it. She said it was one of the few times it had ever snowed in Houston, and her grandfather had taken the photo.
Sandy invited her in for a cup of tea, and they both sat at the kitchen table and talked about her grandparents. She said her grandmother Mary had cancer and died in the house, and she was named after her grandmother. It did not escape Sandy that Mary was the name they had heard from the ghost.
This new Mary shyly asked if anything unusual ever happened in the house. Sandy asked, “Do you mean is the house haunted? “Well, yes,” said the woman tentatively. Sandy explained about the stair walking and doorknob turning, and that they knew the ghost was named Mary. Sandy ran up to the attic and retrieved a photo they had found of a group of young women at school, and pointed out the ghost. Mary’s granddaughter confirmed that it was indeed her grandmother.
Sandy then revealed that she knew her grandmother had committed suicide because of her illness and unhappiness. Mary nodded her head solemnly. “It was quite a scandal. My grandfather was having an affair.”
“I know,” said Sandy and recounted the story of the dripping water on the back porch. Mary confirmed the details of the story and was shocked that so much information had been revealed to Sandy. They talked for a bit longer, and Mary gave Sandy the photo of the house to keep. She said she had prints made of it.
As Sandy let her out the front door, she realized that the message she had gotten had been fulfilled, The tornado had brought someone to the house who cleared up the mysteries surrounding the ghost.
Sandy looked at the photo of the house, and noticed something had changed. There was a kind of swirling cloud over the area where the chimney was now missing. It almost looked like a face in it. She was certain it had not been there when she and Mary had looked at the photo earlier.
Her guides told her that the tornado had activated a vortex that ran through the house, an open gateway for spirits to move in and out of this plane of existence. Things were getting stranger and stranger. Sanctuary was no ordinary house, and she knew the experiences were just beginning. Read More...
