Experts might disagree, but I think fear is a key factor in the survival of the human race.

I'm afraid of many things. As a result, many of the things I fear pretty much leave me alone.

Remember when you asked your uncle why he double knotted his shoelaces? "To keep the tigers away," he said, matter-of-factly.

Seeing the skepticism on your naive face, Uncle Don added, holding back his grin: "Well, it must work. Do you see any tigers?"

On my list of things to fear are snakes [always No. 1 in lists like this] and tornadoes.

I grew up with tornadoes all around me. Fortunately, tornadoes frequently skipped along the hilltops of the Ozarks over yonder without damaging the farmhouse, barn and machine shed in the valley below.

Until I went to college.

Coming home for Thanksgiving, I took a bus to St. Louis, where my stepfather picked me up. We were to spend the night at an aunt's house, but she received an urgent phone call from a neighbor to come home at once. A tornado had struck our farm.

I'll tell you the truth, I can't decide which is worse: knowing a tragedy may have occurred involving those you love and not knowing any details, or immediately knowing all the horrible results of a tragedy.

We made the three-hour drive home fearing the worst. Arriving in the early morning hours at the farm, we couldn't see any of the storm's damage. We knew the farmhouse was still standing, but that was about it.

When dawn arrived, we could see the devastation that so many others have experienced in recent superstorms. The barn was gone. Completely gone. Had it not been for the concrete-block wall along one side of the barn, which was still standing, there was no evidence a barn had ever existed.

The machine shed, clad in sheet metal, was gone, too.

We could see a trail of sheet metal all down Killough Valley. We never found a scrap of the barn, which had been built in 1880.

One of the reasons violent storms frighten me so much is the advance notice modern technology provides. Looking at menacing clouds whirling down the valley is one predictor of a storm. Now radar images on your phones, tablets and computer screens clearly show where those blood-red bands of wind, rain and hail are, how fast they're moving and when to expect to be clobbered.

Even with all of that, we still die from storms we knew about well in advance.

Remember what I said about fear being a key factor in human survival? You also have to take into account that many humans foolishly ignore their fear. They're the ones, like so many of us, who feel compelled to step outside to watch the clouds every time the storm-warning sirens begin to blare.

I missed the storm that rumbled across Cape Girardeau Monday night, the same system that caused so many deaths and so much destruction in Oklahoma. I couldn't even tell for sure if it had rained at my house when I got up Tuesday morning. Then I remembered I put up a rain gauge last year just to answer such questions. Sure enough, there was four-tenths of an inch of rain in my gauge.

It's impossible to know all the feelings of the victims and survivors of this week's Oklahoma tornado. I remember those three hours on that dark night so many years ago, driving toward the scene of our own personal disaster, wondering what to expect. It is unbearable to imagine horror and grief a thousand times greater in Oklahoma.

Joe Sullivan is the retired editor of the Southeast Missourian.