Saturday, April 23, 2011

April Showers

With all the storms going on recently I've been wondering what I would do if I were in a tornado in my truck. Well, I just found out. I got a call this morning from a trucker friend who wanted to tell me what happened to him this week: He was in a tornado. In his truck. In Kentucky. When the hail and horizontal rain got bad he pulled into a rest area. Then came the tornado. Too late to do anything else, he braced himself in his cab, ready to be picked up and thrown around. He watched the flatbed in front of him hauling an I-beam bounce up and down, the truck next to him blow over, and the rest area building implode. He lost a mirror and suffered some major scratches but his truck remained upright on 18 wheels. He says 46,000 pounds of carpet saved his life.

Update: The local news station announced that it was not a tornado as originally believed but a straight-line wind of 80-100 mph that beat up the rest area. Still.