8 . On the day the tornado(龙卷风) hit, there was no sign fierce weather was on its way— the sky was blue and the sun had been out. The first warning my husband, Jimmy, 67, and I, 65, got came around 9 p.m., from some text on the TV Jimmy was watching. He ran upstairs to find me in our third-floor bedroom, and we changed the channel from the national television to our local Pensacola, Florida, station.
Soon the tornado was on top of us. It was the loudest thing I have ever heard. The bones of the house shook, and the power went out. And the wind began to roar(咆哮) through the house, most likely through blown-out windows and the door to our garage. Everything was moving. And the back wall of the house came off and flew into the darkness outside. We had three flights of steps to get to the storeroom down there, the relative safety of the first floor.
I didn’t know how or if we would make it down the steps. It felt as if there were no floor underneath me as the wind lifted me off my feet. As we finally reached the last flight of steps, our front door blew out. Suddenly, a three-foot-long tree branch flew over our heads, missing us by inches.
By the time I reached the storeroom, the tornado had been over us for about a minute. Jimmy pushed me down to the storeroom floor, but he couldn’t get inside himself because of the wind. I held Jimmy’s arm as the tornado blew the door open. My knees were full of glass, but I felt no pain. If I had let go, Jimmy would have flown right out the back of the house.
All of a sudden, Jimmy lifted off his feet. I thought he was gone. And then everything stopped. He landed on his feet. In those first quiet moments, I couldn’t believe it was over. Our neighbor says the storm lasted four minutes. In that time, four of the twelve town houses in our unit were completely destroyed. Amazingly, none of us were seriously injured.
1.
Where did the couple learn about the coming fierce weather?| A．From the dark sky. | B．From the national station. |
| C．From the local news report. | D．From the text sent by their neighbors. |
2.
What can we infer from paragraph 2 about the couple?| A．They were hit by a tree branch. | B．They tried to get out of the house. |
| C．Their garage was blown to pieces. | D．Their house was badly destroyed. |
3.
What do we know about Jimmy when the author reached the storeroom?| A．He was in great danger. | B．He flew out of the house. |
| C．He was seriously injured. | D．He got inside the storeroom. |
