I had a gun pointed at me in a tornado today

[ersh]

Turned out to be a pretty interesting day. Anyone down early for Phish in Alpine Valley might have felt a bit of this as well.

We left Indianapolis this afternoon, in the sweltering heat and humidity, headed for Manitowoc, WI. Oh, and I had a bird shit on me while I was drinking a coffee in front of a huge civil war monument/museum. It was sunny and fairly cloudless... about 4 hours later we noticed the sky getting ugly. John-Angus mentioned he'd heard about a possible tornado watch for the area earlier in the day... so we started cracking tornado jokes. Then the sky turned green, and kept getting crazier and crazier... then it started to rain... and it windy... and windier, and insane, and insaner. All of the sudden we couldn't see 2 feet in front of us - we were driving 10km an hour with winds hitting the van so hard we thought the windows were gonna break. A toll booth collector told us a tornado had touched down just East of us, and there was golf ball size hail coming down too. Time to get off the highway!

So we take the first exit we can, and head off blindly down some little road, just trying to keep from crashing. We narrowly avoided having an oncoming car smash into the front of us, and decided we best pull over and hope for the rain and wind to stop. We pull off the road into a driveway, with a gate and a long road in front of us. The van is rocking and we're wondering what we should do if get flipped by the wind. I've never seen rain or wind like ever ever before. We all laughed nervously and decided we'd get out and run when the van finally rolled from the wind. With a trailer on the van, it was impossible for us to back out onto the busy, slow and dangerous road. So we sat.

A police car pulls in beside us... and thought we could ask the cop to help us back on to the road so we could get to restaurant or something... the cop gets out of his car and walks up beside us, and quite pissed sounding asks us what we're doing there. "well, we pulled off the road cause we got freaked out and couldn't back onto the road and..." he says hold on and heads back to his car. Meanwhile it's still insane out.

We make some obvious cop jokes while he's back at his car. Then we see him coming back... and we notice.... he's got his FUCKING GUN DRAWN and he's creeping up ultra cautiously, trying to see in our foggy windows. Not only are we imagining we're gonna get swept away to OZ, but now there's a nervous US trooper with his gun on us. He's asking us for our ID, telling us that the alarm in the building at the end of the driveway we're parked in is going off, and that how does he know we're not burglarizing the place. "You guys aren't going anywhere. Stay right there." he says. He's real nervous and obviously thinks we're a van full of villains. WTF?

More cops show up. And a real angry dude in a tow truck who says we have to move so he can drive up the driveway... but we're not going anywhere unless the guy with gun says we can first. One cop car drives past us up the driveway and another blocks us in from the back. We're all basically shitting bricks covered in bricks at this point.

Eventually the cop comes back, all laughs now - no longer threatening to shoot us, and tells us we were basically in the wrong place at the wrong time. No shit. The weather is a little better now, but still pretty sketchy. We decide to continue on, but alas, we now have a dead battery. All in all, we were pulled over for just over 2 hours. The truck guy gave us a boost, and off we went... we turned around to find the highway flooded, the power out everywhere, and complete grid lock... 1000 cars going nowhere. We tried some side roads, but got freaked out by the crazy flooding everywhere. We figured it best to be on the highway, at least crawling and on high(er) ground. It took about 2 hours to drive 5 kms to get out of it and start moving at a normal speed. The radio said that Kenosha county got the worst of it. That was exactly where we pulled off the road. Oh man.

Original Video - More videos at TinyPic

[backbacon]

ONly raed this far... great stuff:

"John-Angus mentioned he'd heard about a possible tornado watch for the area earlier in the day... so we started cracking tornado jokes."

gotta love those tornado jokes!

[backbacon]

Yikes! Artsy vid!

[bouche]

I'm a tornado fan and I love extreme weather. I've witnessed storms in Oklahoma a decade or so ago, during which I had hoped to witness a great tornado. In reality, if I was in your situation, I might have pee my pants.

[Birdy]

Awesome! I love crazy weather.

If we had more of it around here, I'd be a storm chaser by way of trade. We get the odd tornado and water spout out on the lake. I once saw a boat get tossed down Rondeau Bay which was pretty crazy. We also once had a storm that hit Erieau (10 min away) which is a tiny little peninsula surrounded by Rondeau Bay to the north and lake Erie to the south and totally destroyed the village. We had a cottage there that i was at, alone. The front windows on the bay totally blew in and a tree crashed through the roof. It was pretty f'ing crazy. Afterwards I went outside to assess the damage to find the whole village doing the same... and the sight was something i've never seen. 40m tall trees that line the main boulevard of Erieau had totally uprooted, peoples windows were all blown in, cars demolished, hydro lines flapping wildly with electricity. I don't know what the f hit us that day, but it was intense! The village was without power for almost five days, and as there is only one road in/one road out, help didn't get there until day 2. It was the biggest mass community clean up project i've ever taken part in.

But, the whole cops pulling a gun on you while during a tornado puts an interesting twist on things... eek!

[Swifty]

Eireau Ontario???

[Birdy]

big time, Swifty.

[Hartamophone]

I'm glad you guys made it out unscathed. I kept waiting for Chad Kroeger to emerge from the storm and crotch-thrust the cops out of your way, but it was an awesome story nonetheless.

[ersh]

Yes!

[Ms.Huxtable]

Wow, what a crazy story! That's going in the biography I hope.

[Booche]

Just when I was starting to think you were making these stories up you provide video evidence.

Hartamaphone, thanks for the visuals. Hilarious.

[c-towns]

Awesome! I love crazy weather.

If we had more of it around here, I'd be a storm chaser by way of trade. We get the odd tornado and water spout out on the lake. I once saw a boat get tossed down Rondeau Bay which was pretty crazy. We also once had a storm that hit Erieau (10 min away) which is a tiny little peninsula surrounded by Rondeau Bay to the north and lake Erie to the south and totally destroyed the village. We had a cottage there that i was at, alone. The front windows on the bay totally blew in and a tree crashed through the roof. It was pretty f'ing crazy. Afterwards I went outside to assess the damage to find the whole village doing the same... and the sight was something i've never seen. 40m tall trees that line the main boulevard of Erieau had totally uprooted, peoples windows were all blown in, cars demolished, hydro lines flapping wildly with electricity. I don't know what the f hit us that day, but it was intense! The village was without power for almost five days, and as there is only one road in/one road out, help didn't get there until day 2. It was the biggest mass community clean up project i've ever taken part in.

But, the whole cops pulling a gun on you while during a tornado puts an interesting twist on things... eek!

I went out there the night of the storm because Vandersluis had a cottage out there, the cops weren't letting people enter the village but we told them our dog was at the cottage and they let us by. "the" biggest tree in erieau fell right onto his cottage and split it in two, definately one crazy storm.

[Birdy]

sheer craziness is what it was.