It was sunny this morning when I left Loveland, Colorado. An attempt to get into the emergency zone was unsuccessful, so I continued north on I-25 into Wyoming. Pam got a complete service in Cheyenne, even though the crew at the lube place had no idea how to work on a VW. I wish people would just ask me where to find things. On the receipt, it said they couldn't check the battery. Yeah, because they had no idea where it was.
Then, out of Cheyenne, I took Highway 85 northeast in the attempt to camp at a hot springs 40 miles up the road. Wyoming isn't much to look at in terms of both sights and population. Rural life is mainstream here. A side effect is a underdeveloped road system, with roads leading to state parks being nothing more than dirt and mud. Pam doesn't like soft ground.
Turning off the highway onto one such muddy road, the weather took a dark turn and started to worry me a bit. I'd seen the dramatic change before. Darkness overtook eastern Wyoming.
The mud was a problem, at one point causing Pam to fishtail out of control. Luckily, the lack of power steering allowed me to compensate just enough, keeping some control and keeping Pam out of a ditch. "Bad idea," I told myself. At the next possible turnout, I decided to give up on the next mile of mud — and what I'm sure would have been nice hot springs — and try to make my way back to the main road. Stopping at the turnaround to regain some composure, I flipped on the radio. Of course, that now familiar EAS tone. Not what I wanted to hear.
Two tornado warnings were in effect, as well as a severe thunder storm alert. Again, of course, one of the tornado systems was right over my head in Laramie County. I returned to the muddy road and made my way back to the highway, again fighting the mud in one uphill stretch that truely made my adrenaline pump.
When I got back to the road, wind and rain had started. I punched the gas and moved north as fast as I could.
Moving through a few small towns that looked deserted, I figured out most everyone was in a shelter or basement. There were very few cars on the road. I decided to head back west on 26, with hopes of making it to the interstate and its fast pace before the storm. In retrospect, it proved the right move.
Highway 26 took me to Guernsey, where I pulled over and debated finding a hotel to bunker down in. Lightning would flash every few seconds, strobing in the gray cloud cover. The radio was calling off the tornado warnings, in place were severe thunder warnings that would surely bring what they called "deadly cloud-to-ground" bolts. It was 4:30, and I decided to press on, hopefully beating the storm to Casper, where a tiny mountain range protects the city from the plain weather.
The road between Guernsey and I-25 ran for 25 miles. During that time, I lost the radio because of the powerful electrical storm overhead. Bolts of blue light struck the ground, in every direction just a few miles from the road.
For roughly 10 minutes, I had about 6 feet of visibility because of heavy rain and quarter-sized hail. I slowed down to 30 m.p.h., hoping I was still moving faster than the storm.
At the I-25 junction, the rain let up and my radio came back in. A tornado had touched down in Guernsey, where I debated staying. It was moving north at 35 m.p.h. The DJ of a Wheatland radio station was telling people to get in their basements, as the storm was headed that way. Wheatland was ten miles to my south.
I hit the freeway and pushed Pam to 75 m.p.h. hoping to put as much distance between me and the storm chasing behind. Everyone around me knew the peril and truckers were driving erratically to make sure they had distance between them and the 75 m.p.h. winds that chased behind.
When I came to milepost 135, an EAS update informed me the tornado was on the ground at 119, moving toward 125. Run Pam, run.
That was the last update I heard. I flicked the radio off and just drove, curving to the west, away from the path of the storm.
I made it to Casper, where it's sunny, protected by the hills to the east. From my room, I can see the storm front moving north in the distance. Again, I'm exhausted from running all day. My body crashing from the adrenaline. I would prefer camping to the rather expensive hotel I was forced to take, but the authorities have closed off most of the camp grounds, as they lie in the path of the storm.
So, safety offsets the cost. Safety has never felt so good.
…
I learned what to do if you aren't in a shelter when a tornado hits, though. NPR told me how to "survive."
If in a car on the highway, avoid underpasses. (Something almost everyone was not doing yesterday. Cars packed under bridges on I-25 while I was running south.) If the tornado is close, park, pull the brake and lay down in a ditch. Otherwise, run like hell.
That my friends, is a "survival technique."