Life can change in a matter of 1/2 hour.
5:30 - I get a call from a friend - bad weather in the area but it's heading due North - You should be OK, but you're going to get heavy rain.
5:40 - Friend calls back - Looks like the bad part of the storm is now heading more East. ( My thoughts right now, Of course it is: I am driving through Tornado Alley in Oklahoma in the Spring ).
5:44 - Voice only says, "Radar to red - you better get to shelter now."
5:46 - Hailing on my car all sizes up to baseball-sized ice bombs.
5:50 - Finally find an overpass to try to sqeeze under ( Unsuccessfully mind you - the shelter from the bridge was filled with three cars already. I sat just on the outside with a dozen other cars being pummelled with ice.
5:50 - Hail stops - it's raining, but I can DO rain. Just as I am driving, my friend checks back with me to see what the situation is. As my friend asks, I look over to my left (which is South) only to see a huge wallcloud approx. 2-5 miles away. Hard to say really when all you see is a ominous black cloud taking up your immediate landscape as the bottom of the wall rotates in a gentle circular motion.
I hear myself say, "I've got bigger things to deal with than hail." I hang up the phone and floor it.
6:00 - Big Truck Stop - I pull into the safety ( If you want to call it that) of a roofed gas station. I get out of the car to the sounds of more hail. The temperature has dropped 20 degrees. As I get my coat, others are parking seeking shelter. We stand there together - as total strangers with a common experience and we watch as this monsterous force of nature passing in front of our eyes merely miles away.
6:15 - Another friend calls to tell me of a tornado that touched down (note to reader: the touchdown was four miles away, just by where I had been sitting below the underpass moments earlier).
6:16 - REALIZATION MOMENT:
My friend had used media and social media to be my real-time eyes on the sky. He used his skills of inquiry, research, analysis, and communication to help a friend out of mortal danger. He never told me that he was on the computer, but I knew enough about him as a learner and professional to trust that he was providing me with the most current radar images from the fasted technological means possible.
Thank you Emgee for interceeding for me and being my eyes on the sky on one very dark afternoon.
Funny thing - I just looked up to see that this post took me exactly 30 minutes to relive and write about. I think I need a drink!!
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