Oh fun! The Tornado Experience!

[chapookie]

While working as an area supervisor for a major amusement park, we were given the radio call for imminent bad weather wherein, we began to close rides, etc.

Next thing we see is a TORNADO coming down and heading toward the park. My colleagues and I begin gathering up guests to take them to the designated shelters and explain procedures for staying safe should the tornado actually hit us.

Several guests refused shelter to take pictures (fine, you chase storms, I'm going to save my own backside now). Several others refused to take shelter because they were convinced that the park was MAKING THE TORNADO for their entertainment!!

I seriously heard someone say this: "Oh, we don't have to worry, [guest name]. It's not real, we're at [park name]! Let's watch it!"

Me: Ooooookay then. Shelter is over there and I'm outta here.

Note: I did try to explain to them that it was indeed real and tried my hardest to get them into the shelter but just got laughed off as they pointed and laughed at their potential impending doom.

The tornado died after touching down a mile away, thank God.

[artifical sweetner]

lol! who would actually think its fake?

[RecoveringKinkoid]

Charles Darwin was a freaking genius.

[chapookie]

lol! who would actually think its fake?

You'd be surprised. This goes right along with people asking me when the rain was going to stop. That, and the people who didn't believe anyone actually lived in the town where the park was located.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Tornadoes are not fun to be in. This I know.

Back in 1995 or so, the Freleigh family headed down to Beaver Dam, Wisconsin to see some auto races. For reference, Beaver Dam is about halfway between Fond Du Lac and Madison.

Thunderstorms were in the weather forecast but the weather was generally good when we left home.

We got a little ways past Fond Du Lac and ran into an absolute deluge. The rain was coming down so hard we had to stop under a highway overpass.

Ten minutes or so later, the rain stopped and we had a decision to make: Continue on to Beaver Dam and hope the weather there is better or turn around and go back home? We chose the first option.

Pulling in to Beaver Dam, we noted the sky was a peculiar combination of pink and green and the clouds had little "fingers" poking down from them. The radio told us the auto races in Beaver Dam were cancelled.

We stopped at a gas station to use the bathroom or something and the tornado sirens began to wail. The gas station attendant offered to let us park our car under the canopy over the gas pumps and take shelter there, but he refused. After all out car was less than a year old. He told us all to jump back into the car and we headed back east out of Beaver Dam, listening to the radio describe flooding and trees and power lines being blown down in Beaver Dam.

Once we were out of danger, we stopped at a restaurant to eat. One the interstate headed for home, a bolt of lightning hit the road right in front of our car and my mom nearly had a stroke.

[WhiteRose]

...we get strong wind here?

OH! and rain! woo!

(not a lot happens here...)

[Food Lady]

You know, when the sky turns yellow or green, that's not a good sign!

[mattm04]

The closet I've even been to a Tornado was when I was camping with a group. we were in the group area of a campground in Massachusetts, basically a semi circle with the sites/utilities around the wooded edge and a camp fire ring and BBQ pit in the middle. This group area was near the camps newly renovated rec area/pool.

we were in a rented pop-up trailer and were a few sites away talking with friends when it starts to get Grey, then light rain, then heavier rain. We go back to close the windows on our trailer when it gets windy and begins to pour then gets windy, really windy. A few others in the group who had tents come to our trailer as their tents were soaked. we turn on the radio and hear the alert tones and the message indicating a possible tornado less than 5 miles away.

Just then the power goes out. It's pitch black. Slowly people turn on their 12V trailer lights or car lights. We can see the rec center, which had a emergency generator powering some exterior flood lights. I can see the trees blowing and stuff blowing by. The we notice the yellow sky ans small hail. crap.

Lucky a possible F1 missed us by three or so miles. That was close enough for me.

[LillFilly]

Eee....Whaaaa...Uhhhh???

They remind me of domesticated turkeys that drown when it rains because they lift their heads-up to see where the water's coming from.

Ahh. Natural selection!

I almost bought the farm myself; got stuck on a hill in a field when the worst thunder/lightning storm I've ever experienced hit. It was really sudden. Grey sky, calme, then BOOM and the toilets of the heavens poured down upon me and my friends! It was pretty surreal as the lighting seemed to strike everywhere around us and we zig-zagged at a dead-run down the hill to shelter. I swear I saw my life flash by in those bolts of lightning! I'm a little scared of lightning now.

Ooh, lightning struck where I worked once. Rattled the whole building, people were screaming and running. Fun times.

[raw456]

"OOOhhhhh! Look at the pretties" is sadly how some people spend their life and more often than not, end it too.

We had a good storm years ago. Lightning struck the antenna on the house next door to us. It blew the phone off the wall inside their house. The noise was so loud I was temporarily deafened and the force of the strike knocked my father (who was outside under our verandah) off his feet about 6 feet.

Our poor dog shook with fear for about 2 weeks after.

[Ironclad Alibi]

I suffered from a lightening strike once. It came in through the phone line and took out the phone, the modem and the serial card in my computer. Fortunately it stopped at the serial card.

[Food Lady]

I'm a bit terrified of lightning now. I didn't experience it much in the desert, but when I moved here and first heard the weather guy use the phrase "deadly lightning," I thought, "Is there any other kind?"

[greek_jester]

when I moved here and first heard the weather guy use the phrase "deadly lightning," I thought, "Is there any other kind?"

Actually, yes. My mum's dad used to work on the railways in the UK in a switching station - this was before tracks would automatically switch for trains.

He used to love thuderstorms, & would lean out of the window frame to get a good view. Unfortunately it was a metal window frame, in the metal wall of a building on metal stilts well away from any hills, trees, or other tall structures. You can see where this is going, can't you? Apparently his supervisors found him out cold on the floor of the hut, burns up both of his arms, after a train went up the wrong track & they couldn't reach him on the phone. He still loved thunderstorms, though

[hecubus]

My dad told me about a time when he was riding in the car with his parents during a thunderstorm. As they went over a hill, lightning struck the car! Luckily, none of them was touching any metal, so they stayed grounded.

He did say that they were all functionally deaf for about a hour afterwards.

[WhiteRose]

never got struck by lightning but i love watching thunder and lightning storms....i'd be happy eating candy and watching it in the dark with a BIG bay window...