Someone brought up Jarrell the other day. Yeah, that place in Texas. Immediately thought about that monster tornado back in ’97. F5, wiped a whole neighborhood clean off the map. Pictures were insane. You see stuff like that, makes you think.
It actually dug up this old memory for me. Wasn’t a tornado, thankfully, but it felt like the world was ending for a bit. Must’ve been, what, summer of ’99? I was driving cross-country, cheap motel to cheap motel, trying to figure stuff out after getting laid off. Real low point, you know? Barely scraping by.
The Storm Hit Fast
Anyway, I was somewhere in the plains, Nebraska maybe? Sky turned this sick green color. Never seen anything like it. Then the wind hit. Like a wall. Started rocking my old pickup truck back and forth. Rain came down so hard it wasn’t even drops, just solid sheets of water. Couldn’t see five feet in front of me.
Pulled over, obviously. Couldn’t even do that right, ended up half in a ditch. Just sat there, gripping the steering wheel. Hail started pounding the roof, sounded like baseballs. Thought the windows were gonna bust. Honestly thought, “This is it.” Scared stiff.
Felt completely powerless. Just stuck in this metal box getting hammered. Reminded me of those pictures from Jarrell, just utter chaos and you can’t do a damn thing about it. My situation wasn’t life or death like theirs, not even close, but that feeling… that feeling of being totally overwhelmed by something huge and uncaring… yeah, I felt a sliver of that.
- Couldn’t see anything.
- Couldn’t move the truck.
- Just had to wait it out.
Felt like forever, but probably only lasted twenty minutes, maybe half an hour. Then, just like that, it eased up. Sun peeked through. Sky looked normal again. Stepped out of the truck, ground was covered in ice balls, leaves stripped off trees everywhere. My truck had dents all over it. But I was okay. Drove real slow to the next town, heart still pounding.
Funny how thinking about one disaster just brings up memories of your own little personal storms. Jarrell was horrific, a real tragedy. My little roadside scare was nothing compared to that. But yeah, seeing nature go wild like that… sticks with you.
