"At around 1830 CDT, I get a call from my mother to pick up my grandmother and aunt. A tornado is on the ground west of OKC on track to hit Bethany, OK, which is where they live. This is a multiple vortex tornado, meaning there's multiple funnels out of one wall cloud, with one being a very large tornado (I'm going to guess is was at least an EF4). So I called my aunt and told her to have her and my grandmother ready to be picked up in 10 minutes. As soon as I left, I had zero regard for speed, stop lights (I turned them into yield signs) or even police officers as I knew they would probably be joining me soon. I picked up my family, and started heading south on Rockwell Avenue.
We came across 2 men that had lost control of their vehicle in the rain and hit a light pole. About 8 cars drove by, and I knew that large tornado was heading right for us. So I stopped, checked on them, then loaded them into my truck and started heading off. About 2 minutes after we left that location, the tornado rolled through it.
We followed one of our interstates east (Interstate 40), then took another south (Interstate 44). I was doing around 100 mph down this bitch, and the highway patrol had zero regards for my speed as they were getting away also. We took an exit on a city street (SW 44th heading east), to drop the guys at one of their brother's house. About 1 mile west of us (we were heading east), another tornado touched down, bearing right at us. So I took action, did about 70 mph darting in between trees, garbage cans and other debris (the wind in this storm was 60+mph) to get away from it.
We got to his brother's house to find that no one was there, so we started trekking north (the one that was near us started veering south) to get away from it. On the way, we encountered a couple of more wrecks, in which the incredible mangeface was the only person to stop and check on them. No injuries, so we proceeded. We started encountering torrential rains, which somehow I was able to see through it and continue on until trees, whole trees, started falling in front of us. I stopped and started backing up, to which I saw 3 or 4 large power flashes in front of us, which is a tell tell sign of a tornado.
For about a second I thought it was the end, but the Marine in me kicked in and I just said "No f*cking way. No f*cking way I'm dying now." I stomped the accelerator and started backing up at a rapid pace. We cleared of that area, to which it was wind, not a tornado, causing the power flashes. We stopped behind a building to see some cover from the hail, which was about the size of dimes and nickels.
After it let up we started heading home, to which I had to drive through numerous ponds built up across the roads, and after I dropped everyone off my rescue instinct kicked in. Numerous cars crashed or on the side of the road. I checked on everyone, and most were alright. One woman had a gash across her head, so I busted out my IFAK and put a pressure bandage on it, called the paramedics and waited for them to arrive."
I just learned a little bit ago while at my parents house that the power flashes I saw was a tornado, which means I was probably no less than a mile away from one. I had my thoughts about it being one, as when the trees started falling the wind had rapidly and violently changed directions. Either way, tornado or not I feel extremely fortunate to escape from the whole situation without harm to me, my family or the 2 men that I had picked up.
Edited by mangeface, 02 June 2013 - 09:06 PM.
