ES - Our storm adventure

[Paul Mitchell]

Allessandra & I came through the storm last night
remarkably well, although that was in serious doubt
for a time...

We were headed home from work, coming south
on 360, turning west on I-20.  The traffic was OK,
but the rain was varying from quite heavy with a little
hail, to remarkably light.  We got about to the 
New York St. overpass on I-20 when visibility dropped
to about 5 feet, so I pulled over, along with many others.
We were near, but not under the overpass, on the shoulder.

The truck rocked back and forth, we heard clattering on
the truck outside, and then suddenly the back window was
broken in.  I grabbed something out of the back seat and
held it up against the window to keep the hail out (learned
later it was Timothy's armor bag, which we've been carrying
around since the war).  Then the wind died down, but 
quickly picked up again from the other direction.  It was
at this point that I realized we were in a tornado.  

Suddenly the windows on the passenger (Allessandra's) side 
of the truck were broken in, so I moved the bag to keep the 
hail and debris off Allessandra.  It was very scary.  When the
wind died down, it occurred to me to turn on the radio, just
in time to hear that the NWS had issued a tornado warning
for Dallas County, because a tornado had touched down at
I-20 and Collins (about 1/4 mile west of us) and was headed
east at 25 mph.  News we could use.  

Visible in my rear-view was a semi lying on its side, and as
we went forward, we passed another before we got off
the highway at the next exit.

We proceeded carefully home, through neighborhoods with
no power, to find no apparant damage in our area (but just
a mile or three from some of the worst damage); the Alan
Keyes for President yard sign was still up in my yard.  We
haven't lost so much as a shingle or a fence-picket.

By the time we'd finished lighting candles and begun looking
for food that didn't need cooking, the lights came back on,
so we called over to Arabella's and invited the meeting over
to our place.  Thanks for coming everybody; it was good to
see faces after an adventure like that.

- Galen & Allessandra


 

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