That was Close!

In the late spring of 1986, I was stationed at the Marine Base at 29 Palms, California.   I had just purchased a  truck owned by a friend and that truck was sitting in his driveway back on the East Coast in Boston.   I took a flight into Logan and headed over to his house, transferred the title and got the truck registered.  Then I hopped in for the long drive back across the United States.

Yesterday, as I am sure you have heard, a line of severe thunderstorms popping up along a frontal boundary dropped several tornadoes in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex.   That sprawling, built up area is home to millions.  Live video taken by photographers in media helicopters of the tornadoes swirling across the landscape tossing buildings and vehicles is simply amazing.  Those awesome video clips reminded me of a close call I had with Mother Nature during my interstate trip west so long ago.

I had been traveling for the better part of a day on Interstate 90 and had reached the western portion of Ohio near Toledo.   Back then, GPS was rare and satellite radio was yet to come.  So, I only had a rudimentary idea of exactly where I was.  I also had to put up with the constant switching of radio stations one once had to endure when traveling long distances and drove in and out of range of a station's FM signal.  

The weather was steamy that day and the sun soon broiled up a line of thunderstorms which I could see forming on the western horizon ahead.   As I motored along, the radio station I was listening to abruptly stopped playing music and jumped into an emergency broadcast.   Loud beeps were followed by an authoritative voice warning that if anyone in the listening area was in Lucas County, they were to take shelter immediately.  Not knowing the county in which I was traveling, I failed to take shelter.  By then, the sky had darkened considerably and the sky took on an ominous green tint.

Much to my surprise and to the surprise of other drivers on the highway, a powerful twisting motion suddenly appeared in a cornfield off to the left side of the interstate.  The small plants caught up in the vortex, whirled and twisted skyward.  As the funnel gathered strength and debris, the column reaching up to the clouds condensed and blackened.   Tornado!  

Three or four football fields away, the tornado headed straight for us on the highway on a perpendicular course.   Open mouthed, I and the drivers around me pushed on the accelerators of our vehicles to put some distance between us and the growing menace.  As I glanced into the rearview mirror, the funnel cloud crossed the highway behind me at the very spot I had been just a few seconds before.  Its power lifted the vehicle's tail end and shoved it to the right and then left.  Fortunately, I was able to maintain control and not slam into another vehicle.  Quickly, I moved away from the growing twister and it whirled away from me.  I guess that day was not my time to meet my Maker.

Up ahead a few miles I stopped at a debris strewn rest stop to catch my breath and calm down.  The topic of conversation of all the travelers there was how close all of us had come to having a very bad day.  After a few moments of contemplation, I filled up with gas and headed back out on to the interstate.  Eventually, after passing through some fairly heavy rain and wind in another part of the storm, I emerged from the supercell's influence and broke back out into the sunshine.  As I headed west with the sun setting in front of me, I looked behind me back to the storm just passed.  It was massive.  It's huge anvil shaped top clamored up into the atmosphere.  My guess was it reached to at least 50,000 feet.  Billowing, puffy clouds sparkled pure white in the setting sun while below the evil darkness of the storm merged with the growing dusk.  Tongues of lightning flickered constantly.  The sun set further casting an eerie orange glow on the storm as it continued to fade in the eastern distance.