A Tornado Doesn't Have To Be Round To Be a Tornado.
Posted: Tuesday, December 30, 2008
by Mike Fak
http://mikefak.com
Well, I'm back among those in the world of communications. It was a bit shaky for a few days and when my computer doesn't work that means both of my jobs come to a grinding halt.
It all started with the mother of all spyware programs that had me inventing more new cuss words than Funk and Wagnalls could keep up with. I will tell you about this foray into internet skullduggery next week.
Once again the weather in central Illinois was ridiculous. It has been so nasty around here that Eskimos have been cancelling their traveling plans to visit the area as it is nicer on the straits of the Bering Sea than it has been around here.
This time we were met with a Christmas of snow, sleet, freezing rain and then fog that was so thick that snow plows were having trouble cutting through it.
That was nothing as to what happened to us on Saturday around the noon hour.
On a day where temperatures soared into the mid 60s we weren't allowed to enjoy the reprieve. Instead we were hit with 30 to 40 MPH winds that made being outside miserable. And then it came.
Now the National Weather Service calls this type of thing an anomaly but I call it a @#^%%#$%.
Suddenly looking down our street I saw heavy rains with a wind that was pushing and snapping trees as it roared down the block. The weather people call this 70MPH plus dose of wind a "Downdraft" but I call it a tornado without the spin cycle but just as bad.
As the sirens went on, the wind blew anything under 100 pounds past the window and I believe some things are still rolling along probably in Indiana or Ohio by now.
I made the mistake of trying to open the door to take a picture of the trees falling over but when I did it was all I could do to hurriedly push it shut again. In just that instant I was drenched and I knew from the look on my wife's face that if I opened the door again she would push me out and tell me to say hello to Dorothy as I flew on by.
The rain came down like a monsoon for a while and although the downdraft had finished its damage, there were still strong enough winds to make being anywhere outside dangerous.
Finally it let up just a bit, the sirens went off and I told my wife I needed to drive around and see what damage had occurred besides half the trees in the county having been pruned into looking like totem poles.
It was then I got the call that the tower at work had gone down.
The internet company that is the parent to the newspaper provides both dial up and broadband signals. The broadband coming initially from the 150 foot tower at the office that then hits relays throughout the area. Of all the things that could have come down, I surely didn't think the tower would be one of them.
Arriving at the office, I could see the report was no exaggeration. 100 feet of the tower layed crumpled and smashed in the parking lot. Bent and holding at about the fifty foot mark, the tower rested on the edge of a now smashed office roof.
Standing in the rain with the owner, there wasn't much to be done at the time. The tower was too heavy plus it's resting on the roof prevented it from falling across the power line that fed the businesses along the busy intersection. Nothing should be done at the moment without a trained person in a crane to make sure the tower didn't catch the wire and turn itself into a giant Roman candle.
People started to pull into the lot and some of them had to ask the question, "What happened". Biting my tongue and not answering back with something like Godzilla just went by, I answered with the obvious.
The most bizarre incident was when the rain started up again and an old man got out of an old truck and walked over to us. He asked if we would be able to put the tower back up. We replied no since it had lost its tensile strength and was obviously twisted in many areas into a snarl of useless metal. The old man then asked if he could have some of the tower to build himself a deer stand. Yeh, that was enough for me and I went home. Don't tell me that wasn't a tornado.
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Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)I just became a fan of yours, I am laughing so hard that my sides hurt.....especially about the "I made the mistake of trying to open the door to take a picture of the trees falling over but when I did it was all I could do to hurriedly push it shut again. In just that instant I was drenched and I knew from the look on my wife's face that if I opened the door again she would push me out and tell me to say hello to Dorothy as I flew on by". What creativity, and the funny thing is, I am "Seeing" all that you are talking about....very descriptive, very well written, and I must say, very entertaining. I can't wait to see whats up your sleeve the next go around....I also like the part about the Eskimos, hahahahahaha!!!! A wonderfully enjoyable read!!!! You must work for a newspaper!! ha.
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