recoil.cz

Black Box

The truthful story by Andrea L. "Georgie" Burns Plano, Texas, USA

I am fascinated by the weather. I saw a funnel cloudonce while driving home from jury duty a few yearsback.  At first I thought someone's home had beenstruck by lightning because there had been a terriblestorm earlier that morning, because it was so blackagainst the grey sky and it looked like a thick cloudof smoke...as I drew nearer, I realized it was afunnel cloud that was lowering to the ground.  I wasvery afraid because I was unprepared for it and wasout on an empty highway in the middle of an open field, so there was nowhere for me to take cover.  I had two choices...I could either sit there and wait for it to come to me, or I could try and drive past it...being the daredevil that I can be (only at the wrong times, it seems) I decided to outrun it.  As I made it to the edge of town, I crossed a bridge and actually drove right underneath it!  It crossed over the bridge (still as a lowered funnel cloud) and then it climbed back up into the sky.  Needless to say, I was relieved.  I would love to go on a tornado chase someday ... obviously that would be a rather dangerous situation, but I would be surrounded by weather team experts so I would feel very safe. That is one my life's 'to do list'...