I remember so clearly my storm chase on May 13th 2009 of the Kirksville Missouri tornado.
My chase started with spotting my first tornado near Novinger Missouri, where I played tag with it several times, getting some nice video clips of it, until finally it approached the city limits wrapped in rain. Many cars were at the main crossroad leading into the city, and that is where I turned and stopped to try to spot the tornado again. While sitting there I realized none of people in these cars around me knew the tornado was only minutes away from them. They simply didn’t know.
I wound down my car window and yelled at people warning them a tornado was heading their way. A few drove away from the storm, but many sat in front of that tornado as it approached. It was rain wrapped, meaning there was so much rain around the tornado at this point no one could see the tornado, just the rain. After yelling my last warnings, I drove out of its path, where the tornado then moved into the small town and took the life of one person in her home.
At this point I started to become overly confident, believing I was incapable of making a bad decision. I drove to a road that put me in the path of the tornado one more time, and there I tagged the tornado again, getting within 50 yards of it, it was slightly visible within the rain curtain and looked larger than before it hit the city. I shot some great video as it hit the trees in front of me. It started raining really hard at this point, so I decided to break off the chase of this storm since seeing the tornado became impossible.
So, I headed east to intercept the storm that was building near Kirksville to film the next tornado.
By the time I caught up to this second storm it was now producing a powerful and deadly tornado where it took two lives. Feeling as though I was in control of everything around me, I decided to cut in front of the tornado to film it as it destroyed buildings near me. The problem was I mistakenly turned onto a dead-end road, where I became trapped in the path of the damaging tornado with no place to go.
I sat in my car, certain of death at this point. As debris from the tornado pounded my car, I watched large pieces of plywood, siding, 2X4’s flying past me, some of them slamming into my car so hard it shook. Expecting that I wasn’t going to survive this, I prayed to God telling Him my life was in His hands. I completely surrendered to God’s will and sovereign power.
Miraculously I was not killed, I wasn’t even injured.
With the first tornado many people’s lives were in grave danger but they didn’t understand what was happening so they didn’t grasp the danger. With the second tornado I knew what was happening, I knew how dangerous the tornado was, but I failed to make good decisions.
God tells us what is coming in the Bible and we need seek out this truth, to learn it. Choosing to ignore God’s Word doesn’t make you safe, it makes you uninformed. Choosing to learn of God’s truth still doesn’t make us safe by itself, we need to act on it correctly and make the appropriate choices. Then when we surrender to God’s Word and act on it wisely we will find life in Christ and the safety He brings.
Video can be seen here: https://youtu.be/foQt5VknRj4