Sample 16

Sample 16
1 It seemed like any other day... Listening to some soft music on the radio late one night in our penthouse at District 5 while thinking about a science project. Damnation! Right at the moment when I thought of a good idea for my project, an enormously loud broadcast interrupted the light music that was playing. “This is a message from the meteorological centre. District 1-9 in the Illinois region will have a 90% chance of being hit by a tornado in the next fifteen minutes. We will continue to give updates via this radio station. Residents are advised to proceed to their storm cellars and take a ready bag with you containing some food and a radio. You are reminded not to switch on any electrical, gas and water supplies. All updates will be given via radio and you will not be advised to call us, the meteorological centre.”
2 Alarmed by this sudden announcement, I alerted my parents and Tim, my little brother. My father double checked with another broadcast from the radio station. Upon confirmation, he immediately sprang into action. First, he switched off the main gas, water and electricity. He reminded us to keep calm and instructed us to assemble the ready bag. It seemed we had taken our safety for granted. We had not packed our ready bag even though we were encouraged by the government to do so.
3 After frantically packing our ready bag, we rushed down to the storm cellar in the basement. My watch screamed that fifteen minutes is almost up! Phew! We were really lucky. Just moments later, we heard a faint sound of the tornado approaching. “Brother, can I play ‘chopsticks’ with you?” When I could not hear a reply from Tim, I froze dead still. “Tim is not here!” I shouted in despair to my parents. My parents instinctively looked around but nowhere was Tim in sight. Oh no! I vaguely remembered him talking about our pet dog. He must have gone for him. My mother started wailing uncontrollably while I stood dumbstruck. My father, after careful consideration, told us to stay calm. We will search for Tim once the meteorological centre gives an all clear for our area.
4 The wait was unbearable. Even though there were only three of us, the noise in the cellar seemed louder than that of a fish-market. The emotions and tensions inside the cellar were high. Everybody was worried about Tim. We could not wait for the announcement being broadcasted to say that our district is safe from the tornado. For every second that passed, our patience dipped lower. Finally, we heard what we wanted to hear. The tornado alert in our district is lifted! We got out of the underground cellar and felt lucky to see that our house was completely untouched by the tornado although our neighbour’s house was destroyed.
5 Immediately, we started searching for Tim. Seeing the amount of destruction made by the tornado did not make us feel better. We started to search inside the house. The search yielded nothing. We tried to look at the positive side and searched outside the house. We were nearly giving up when we heard a faint cry from somewhere. That sound was similar to that of my brother! Suddenly, our spirits lifted up. We continued to walk towards the source of the sound. Then we saw our family dog, whining into the drain. We rushed forward and true enough, my dear little brother was crouching in the drain. When he saw us, he cried “Mummy, Daddy help! I can’t climb out of the drain.” My mum broke down in tears of joy. What a relief for all of us.
6 We got home and started to inquire our brother what happened. Our brother told us what had happened: My brother was woken up by us because of the tornado alert. He noticed that our pet dog was running away from our house. My brother was deemed too small to help, therefore left out and ignored. He decided to chase after our dog. The dog was too tired therefore stopped running. By then, my brother has already seen the tornado coming. Luckily for him, he remembered what his teacher has said and ducked in the drain. Because he listened in class, he survived. (706)