He squinted as he looked off to the Southwest. The severe thunderstorm was on radar and was moving his way. That he knew. He just couldn’t see what he was looking for — a damned line of pines and oaks obscured his view. He knew it was out there, though. He felt it coming. A tornado was heading his way. He put his truck in drive and moved to where he could see the horizon.
Your floor is as flat as the Mississippi Delta. Tornadoes (which you can see for miles in the Delta) have raked across this prime agricultural land for centuries. But now, there were people in their way. So his job was to spot the tornadoes before they got to the towns. To warn the people. To see if the confirmed hook echoes on the National Weather Service radar were indeed a tornado on the ground. It was thrilling work. And it could be incredibly tragic.
He remembered driving into Smithville, MS moments after the EF-5 wiped the city off the map. He tracked the Yazoo City tornado as it tore up trailers and homes and left a scar across the state of Mississippi. He saw the bodies in the trees. He could still see them when he closed his eyes. He could still smell the broken pines and the natural gas.
For man to think he could tame nature was ludicrous. There was no place that had more scars to prove it than Mississippi. Drive along the Mississippi Gulf Coast and you could see what a hurricane could do. See the south Delta during backwater flooding. And of course, there was the occasional tornado.
The sky was as green as a poopie diaper. He laughed — only someone with kids would understand that joke. Lightning was flickering on the horizon like a strobe light — experience had taught him that usually meant “tornado”. He looked on his tablet at the radar. Yup, that was the severe cell. He parked his truck on the side of the road and got his radio and his camera out. “I have a funnel on the ground about to cross Highway 61,” he called into his radio. “Looks like a wedge tornado, possibly as large as an EF-3.” A wedge tornado was one that was incredible wide at the base. It didn’t dance around like the rope tornadoes he frequently saw in the Delta. “This one will be bad,” he thought to himself. He filmed a few minutes of it as it headed to the northeast. “Better move,” he thought. “Don’t want to end up in OZ.”
His obsession with tornadoes had begun when he was a small child living in Philadelphia, Mississippi. A tornado had torn through the town, killing several people he knew. In fact, his own house had been leveled. I remembered his family huddled, crying in the ditch nearby. He’d never forget the rumbling whine of the tornado. Or the crashing sound as his world disappeared into the wind. For years he had thought it to be a cruel joke his high school’s nickname was the Tornadoes. After he had graduated, he had gone to Mississippi State to pursue his meteorology degree. Weather had shaped him like heat and pressure makes diamonds. A tornado blown through his life and he’d spend the rest of his life chasing it.
He had been sleeping in his house in Madison, Mississippi when the sirens went off one Saturday morning. The Fairfield tornado (as it was called) slammed through his subdivision with all its EF-4 power. One lady died in that storm. He lost his roof. His family was safe in the safe room (a must). But he stood there on the front porch and watched as the houses around him started to break apart. He almost didn’t make it to shelter in time. But he refused to be frightened. Like a victim’s family at Parchman on execution day, he was going to stare the killer in the face.
“Tell Indianola to get ready. This one will be on the ground by the time it gets there.” The structure of the storm had strengthened. He could see farm equipment getting tossed around like Tonka Toys during a toddler’s fit.
Some people went to church to be closer to God. He chased tornadoes. There was something almost Old Testament about them. They were God’s power on Earth. The tornado took a bead on a small, white church. Suddenly white board soared high into the funnel. “Ouch.”
“We had a small community, I think Tribbett, that was hit. Better send ambulances,” he reported to the Sheriff. He close his eyes and thought of hanging on to his mother than fateful day in Philadelphia. He heard the whine. The rumbling. The freight train. He felt her as she lifted off the ground. He opened his eyes again and watched the tornado lumber toward Indianola.
He said a quick prayer for his friends in Indianola. And right as he said Amen and opened his eyes, the tornado decayed into a rope tornado. And then it disappeared into the sky.
“Thanks.” he looked at the sky. He got back into his truck and headed toward Indianola for lunch. Another chase had come to a close. It was yet another day chasing his demons. It was another day of pursuing the Finger of God.