Bart_Comstock
EF5
Matthew, the EF-scale was not implemented until 2007.
My closest calls would have to have the Kirksville, MO tornado, Hurricane Ike, and in Wakeeny, KS on May 22nd, 2008.
While filming Hurricane Ike (09/12/08) from downtown Houston, Tyler Constantini, Mike Scantlin and myself decided to leave the cover of our parking garage to venture out and see how the city had been fairing the eye wall. As we drove back towards the cover of our parking garage a large piece of window came off the tower and collided with the passenger window, right next to my head. It hit the window hard enough to give me a good scare since I had my ear pressed to it while trying to film glass that was laying on the street. The shard of window also took a nick out of Tyler's passenger window. The video from Ike is posted below. The incident happened about 4:25 into the video.
The Kirksville Tornado (05/13/09) close call came as a result of my poor decision to try and stay with the storm. Earlier in the day I filmed the Kirksville tornado as it narrowed down from being a wedge to a violent stovepipe as it moved into north Kirksville. At the time I thought it was passing north of the city and did not realize it was about to hit a subdivision and a Toyota dealership. The tornado quickly became completely wrapped by a thick curtain of rain blocking my vision of it. Once this happened Brian Hurst and I moved our vehicles and started to follow the storm to the east down Hwy 11. After we got a few miles past town we passed Tim Samaras and started to have bits of small debris fall around us. I radioed back to Brian and said he should get south. As the debris got larger I feared that I would be in danger if I stopped as there was a large curtain of rain in my review mirror so I decided to take the next turn off the road I could and hope for a south option on it. My radar updates had become slow at this point because AT&T has less bars in more places. As I raced towards my next south option (which was under a mile away) I suddenly started to feel the wind drastically pick up and a very large amount of debris fill the air around me. It was at this time that I reached the top of a hill with a clearing and saw, much to my dismay, the tornado heading right for where I was driving. I quickly put the car in reverse and start to back up only to have the inflow winds push me just enough that my rear tire slide into the ditch.
Towards the end of the May 22nd outbreak in Central Kansas back in 2008 I had a close call while chasing with Chris Wilburn. Chris and I were sitting in his RAV4 just south of Wakeene (on the road the Budget Host hotel is on) and were trying to watch an approaching supercell just after dusk. As the storm raced towards us it quickly started to get its act together. We heard on the radio someone report debris and quickly decided to get out of the way of the barely visible updraft area. As we started to get up on I-70 and blast east we got dumped on by heavy precip and was buffeted by very strong winds that quickly changed direction. Once the storm passed we headed back into Wakeene to find that the airport had been damaged and several tour vans that were parked at a hotel had lost all their windows. The Budget host had lost its sign and some windows and the gas station next to it had roof damage. We were lucky to get out of there when we did and thankfully did not meet up with any loose elephants that night.
My closest calls would have to have the Kirksville, MO tornado, Hurricane Ike, and in Wakeeny, KS on May 22nd, 2008.
While filming Hurricane Ike (09/12/08) from downtown Houston, Tyler Constantini, Mike Scantlin and myself decided to leave the cover of our parking garage to venture out and see how the city had been fairing the eye wall. As we drove back towards the cover of our parking garage a large piece of window came off the tower and collided with the passenger window, right next to my head. It hit the window hard enough to give me a good scare since I had my ear pressed to it while trying to film glass that was laying on the street. The shard of window also took a nick out of Tyler's passenger window. The video from Ike is posted below. The incident happened about 4:25 into the video.
The Kirksville Tornado (05/13/09) close call came as a result of my poor decision to try and stay with the storm. Earlier in the day I filmed the Kirksville tornado as it narrowed down from being a wedge to a violent stovepipe as it moved into north Kirksville. At the time I thought it was passing north of the city and did not realize it was about to hit a subdivision and a Toyota dealership. The tornado quickly became completely wrapped by a thick curtain of rain blocking my vision of it. Once this happened Brian Hurst and I moved our vehicles and started to follow the storm to the east down Hwy 11. After we got a few miles past town we passed Tim Samaras and started to have bits of small debris fall around us. I radioed back to Brian and said he should get south. As the debris got larger I feared that I would be in danger if I stopped as there was a large curtain of rain in my review mirror so I decided to take the next turn off the road I could and hope for a south option on it. My radar updates had become slow at this point because AT&T has less bars in more places. As I raced towards my next south option (which was under a mile away) I suddenly started to feel the wind drastically pick up and a very large amount of debris fill the air around me. It was at this time that I reached the top of a hill with a clearing and saw, much to my dismay, the tornado heading right for where I was driving. I quickly put the car in reverse and start to back up only to have the inflow winds push me just enough that my rear tire slide into the ditch.
Towards the end of the May 22nd outbreak in Central Kansas back in 2008 I had a close call while chasing with Chris Wilburn. Chris and I were sitting in his RAV4 just south of Wakeene (on the road the Budget Host hotel is on) and were trying to watch an approaching supercell just after dusk. As the storm raced towards us it quickly started to get its act together. We heard on the radio someone report debris and quickly decided to get out of the way of the barely visible updraft area. As we started to get up on I-70 and blast east we got dumped on by heavy precip and was buffeted by very strong winds that quickly changed direction. Once the storm passed we headed back into Wakeene to find that the airport had been damaged and several tour vans that were parked at a hotel had lost all their windows. The Budget host had lost its sign and some windows and the gas station next to it had roof damage. We were lucky to get out of there when we did and thankfully did not meet up with any loose elephants that night.
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