Update

We retrieved the kid from Fayetteville yesterday, in a speedy trip up the mountain. We wanted to get back down the mountain before the big storms hit, which we did, just barely -- the tornado went by just ten miles behind us, where we were stalled on the interstate.

Which is another story.

As we were leaving Fayetteville, about six minutes down the interstate, traffic suddenly came to an absolute standstill. No traffic was coming in the other direction either. We assumed it was a huge wreck. Police cars wailed past on the shoulders, and one ambulance -- just one.

"Must be some wreck," I mused. I had turned the car off and we were waiting. I was watching the weather, but it looked like the huge storm would miss us, despite the near constant warnings that kept coming on NPR, telling us to take shelter at once. (Where? Not even any ditches on that stretch of the interstate.)

After we'd waiting nearly an hour, the traffic started moving again. We passed about sixty police cars, their trouble lights spinning, up under a bridge. No wreck that I could see. Also, about a mile on, we saw the police had shut down the north-bound interstate, and it was still closed. Traffic backed up for miles.

"That's odd," I said, but we were moving, and I got the car up to 80, getting home just as the storm reached the Fort.

Later we found that someone had robbed a bank in a town near us, and the police had shut down the interstate in both directions to swoop down on the bank robbers and arrest them. I guess they didn't want to risk shooting passing motorists?

We're home, anyway, and the Kid is home, and our house is still not flooded.