All I can say after yesterday is WOW! I will be posting multiple video clips here shortly as I am working on encoding them right now. As some of you have heard, we had a multi vortex tornado develop right on top of us. We had just seen a rain wrapped tornado west of there near the community of Ayr just south of Hastings, NE. We were heading east staying ahead of the storm when it changed it's trajectory and one of the largest RFD sweeps I have ever seen came out and around us to the east. This took down some large trees over the road which REALLY slowed our progress, well at this point our escape to the east. We finally snaked our way through the downed trees and bailed east as quick as we could trying to get east of that RFD and out of the bear's cage. We spotted a fire truck and pulled up to tell them about the trees on the road when the tornado developed right on top of us. When you see the video that is where it begins. Multiple vortices were forming and spinning all around us! Before we started moving we registered a speed max on the wxstation at 107.8 mph effectively putting that in the F1 range at least during that time.
I just floored it trying to go the only way we could....east. I had the accelerator completely floored and was only moving at about 10 mph for a little while. The van was trying to lift up in the back as this is the lightest end of the van and was pushing the back sideways. I looked in the rear view and saw the fire truck trying to turn around and I could swear I saw it start to turn over as the dust between us blocked out any further view. I have yet to confirm if that happened but we called nowcaster Tom Tackett who was able to call the NWS who in turn contacted the Clay County sheriff's dept who THEN called us trying to find where he was so they could check on him.
As we ran for our lives east at this point, we came through the community of Fairfield on HWY 74 where you hear the siren's going off in the video. We were trying to get far enough east of everything to stop and assess the damage and we finally did near the community of Strang. Some locals saw us having difficulty and stopped to help put plastic on the windows. This proved to be a futile attempt in the wind and they took us in to their community into a steel barn where we could get the plastic on. They then took us over to a little resteraunt they had there and was going to let us use their internet connection and offered us food and drink. I walked out to the van to get a cable to see a rapidly rotating wall cloud almost overhead and we told them all to head for shelters while we bailed out south as they were scrambling.
We eventually ended up very near Hallam, NE where we heard the call go out for any and all help that could come. Being past trained as a First Responder and carrying a full trauma kit we made a quick run over there where what we saw was nothing more than completely amazing.
The state police let us in and sent us up the road to Hallam where as we followed a state police car in weaving through all manner of debris ranging from LARGE hay bails to power lines to structure materials.
Arriving at the intersection just east of the town where the first responding help to the area was setting up. A member of the Southwest Fire Dept came over and asked if we were Storm Chasers and replied yes and they said they had heard of another tornado strike just to the south at the community of Cortland and requested that we head south down there and see what, if anything, had happened.
Heading south we passed tremendous damage along the road as well as all manner of materials in the road. We finally came upon a spot that water was rapidly running across and there was tremendous debris. Right across from there was a couple of houses completely destroyed and we needed to get across that. A fire truck had come up behind us and they decided to go through it. After they did we snaked though. I managed to severely damage a CV axle on some debris getting through that. We found one family that had actually left Hallam and came to that location to take shelter and had been in the basement. The crew from fire truck that went in with us asked us if we could transport them back to the triage station that had been set up at the Stuart Station Power Plant just north of Hallam. At this point it was time to turn the cameras off and start helping. We threw everything that was in the seats in the back and loaded up the whole family, mom and dad and 3 kids and we headed back through the mess to the triage center. The mom was wanting a cigarette really bad so my ride along gave her the whole pack she had and we also gave them some drinks out of our cooler. They were pretty scared that there were more tornadoes in the area, so while we were transporting them I called Tom and got an update to find out that everything had moved east of the area much to their relief of course.
When we arrived there the crews there took on the family where the mom hugged us and kissed us before we parted, and then the medical crews got concerned about us after finding out about our tornado encounter. They had us check in to triage for records and then we headed back to Hallam. At this point our help was no longer needed so I was back to shooting video again. I will also post some videos of this stuff. I won't be posting video of the family we transported. I felt that not only would running the cameras at that point been seriously disrespectful but helping them FAR took the priority at the time. She did invite us to come back out today and she would give us a tour of her house so I gave her contact info as I am sure no one is getting in there at this point.
Right now due to damage to the van I am basically stuck on Nebraska. Monday will be trying to get windows replaced, half of the soil and vegetation of Nebraska cleaned out of the van and get the CV axle repaired.
Stay tuned......
