benh
Newly Enlightened
- Joined
- Sep 2, 2005
- Messages
- 169
So I was driving towards Springfield from Chicago on Sunday night and got caught in the heavy weather out there. It was raining incredibly hard, to the point where I was looking for a place to pull off until it let up. We were a couple miles North of Springfield.
I could no longer see the highway, and conveniently, there was a rest stop right there, so we pulled off. As we sat in the car listening to the radio, the rest stop lost power and almost simultaneously, they reported a tornado warning. We grabbed our coats and headed toward the building, where some folks had already gathered.
I had an Arc around my neck as EDC, and left an L2P in my bag in the car, along with an Infinity. In my coat pocket was a Surefire G2, which ended up being the only light I used. I also had various other crap in my pockets as EDC, including a Prybaby, a Ritter Minigrip, lighter, etc.
Most people were just standing there looking at the rain. I fired up the G2 and immediately began looking around at the restroom building and the adjacent vending hut, to determine which place would be best in the event of a tornado. I checked out both buildings and also looked around the perimeter of the buildings for potential problems.
The vending hut looked more solid, and had fewer windows, but it was also full of vending machines and people. When I came into the hut to look around, people thought I was a cop or something, probably because of the light.
"Wow! A cop! Assistance is here!" My response was pretty much that assistance wasn't here. I was just trying to find the safest place to be. Everyone started laughing, and then they decided I was a trucker. Nope, just a guy with a flashlight.
Decided that the bathrooms would be the safest place, despite the glass. Less heavy stuff to blow around and smush us.
Meanwhile, there's a ton of strong wind and buckets of rain coming down. By this point, there are about 20 people huddled under the overhang by the bathrooms. Of them I was the only one with a flashlight, though a couple of newcomers had some small AA incans of one kind or another and one older lady had a coin cell LED light, still in the packaging.
Took advantage of my light to use the rest room, and lent it to a few others for the same purpose. One guy, after coming back out, handed me my light and made a comment to the effect that I sure was prepared. My automatic response was "Always."
Things began to calm down quite a bit, and the storm blew over. One of the people in our little refugee group was on his Nextel to someone in Springfield, and we learned that several tornadoes had touched down along 55 very near us and that there was a truck overturned on 55 to the South of us.
Everyone hung out for a while to make sure things blew over and I went to talk to a trucker to find out what the road ahead was like. He indicated that 55N was closed due to overturned trucks, but that southbound was more or less clear.
Went to the vending hut to let those folks know and they were all gone, leaving behind a ton of broken vending machine glass and some empty wrappers. They actually broke out the glass front on one of the machines and stole the snacks. I was dumbfounded.
That was about it for the fun. We got back in the car and headed South on 55, listening to the reports. Turns out that we got lucky. If we'd been maybe 15 or 20 minutes later, we'd have been in the Decatur area, which got completely slammed, with a 1/2 mile wide tornado and 1.75 inch hail. Damn. As it stands, we later learned that a tornado has passed within about a mile of us at the rest stop.
At any rate, the G2 worked perfectly, and we made it home safely, if a bit behind schedule. I blame my girlfriend for the tornados, though. As we were driving through the heavy rain, she'd posed a hypothetical question:
"Which would you rather be in, a fire or a tornado?" I picked tornado. So maybe it's my fault.
I could no longer see the highway, and conveniently, there was a rest stop right there, so we pulled off. As we sat in the car listening to the radio, the rest stop lost power and almost simultaneously, they reported a tornado warning. We grabbed our coats and headed toward the building, where some folks had already gathered.
I had an Arc around my neck as EDC, and left an L2P in my bag in the car, along with an Infinity. In my coat pocket was a Surefire G2, which ended up being the only light I used. I also had various other crap in my pockets as EDC, including a Prybaby, a Ritter Minigrip, lighter, etc.
Most people were just standing there looking at the rain. I fired up the G2 and immediately began looking around at the restroom building and the adjacent vending hut, to determine which place would be best in the event of a tornado. I checked out both buildings and also looked around the perimeter of the buildings for potential problems.
The vending hut looked more solid, and had fewer windows, but it was also full of vending machines and people. When I came into the hut to look around, people thought I was a cop or something, probably because of the light.
"Wow! A cop! Assistance is here!" My response was pretty much that assistance wasn't here. I was just trying to find the safest place to be. Everyone started laughing, and then they decided I was a trucker. Nope, just a guy with a flashlight.
Decided that the bathrooms would be the safest place, despite the glass. Less heavy stuff to blow around and smush us.
Meanwhile, there's a ton of strong wind and buckets of rain coming down. By this point, there are about 20 people huddled under the overhang by the bathrooms. Of them I was the only one with a flashlight, though a couple of newcomers had some small AA incans of one kind or another and one older lady had a coin cell LED light, still in the packaging.
Took advantage of my light to use the rest room, and lent it to a few others for the same purpose. One guy, after coming back out, handed me my light and made a comment to the effect that I sure was prepared. My automatic response was "Always."
Things began to calm down quite a bit, and the storm blew over. One of the people in our little refugee group was on his Nextel to someone in Springfield, and we learned that several tornadoes had touched down along 55 very near us and that there was a truck overturned on 55 to the South of us.
Everyone hung out for a while to make sure things blew over and I went to talk to a trucker to find out what the road ahead was like. He indicated that 55N was closed due to overturned trucks, but that southbound was more or less clear.
Went to the vending hut to let those folks know and they were all gone, leaving behind a ton of broken vending machine glass and some empty wrappers. They actually broke out the glass front on one of the machines and stole the snacks. I was dumbfounded.
That was about it for the fun. We got back in the car and headed South on 55, listening to the reports. Turns out that we got lucky. If we'd been maybe 15 or 20 minutes later, we'd have been in the Decatur area, which got completely slammed, with a 1/2 mile wide tornado and 1.75 inch hail. Damn. As it stands, we later learned that a tornado has passed within about a mile of us at the rest stop.
At any rate, the G2 worked perfectly, and we made it home safely, if a bit behind schedule. I blame my girlfriend for the tornados, though. As we were driving through the heavy rain, she'd posed a hypothetical question:
"Which would you rather be in, a fire or a tornado?" I picked tornado. So maybe it's my fault.
