In Memphis, Tennessee, and Stuck Between Two Tornadoes

Tuesday, February 5, started like a lot of other days in Memphis. The day was slightly overcast with the sun appearing periodically, keeping the temperatures unseasonably warm above 70 degrees. Having heard the weather reports from WMC-TVs Dave Brown I knew that the wise thing to do was make my way home before things got too bad.

Leaving HighPoint Coffee on Union I drove to get on Sam Cooper Boulevard and was greeted by darkness and a torrential downpour so intense you could not see through your front windshield. People were actually, letting their windows down to see out the side of their windows. It was an amazingly scary site. Cars had already begun scattering on one of Memphis' busiest streets, an amazing site for 4 o'clock in the afternoon. As I made my way through what seemed like an hour of traffic to go only five miles I got onto I-40 and headed to Cordova. It was dark all around and the rain was still wreaking havoc like someone throwing sticks on the car because of all the debris flying in the wind, and the further I drove the worse it got.

I pondered pulling over to the side of the road but with nothing blocking the wind and rain there was little for me to stop and wait the storm out. And so I continued driving, trying to get to Appling Road and that's when I saw the dark clouds coming together and a swirl beginning on the right side of my window. TORNADO!!!

With a sound as thunderous as if I were standing on the tarmac at the Memphis International Airport, the sound of that tornado did more than whistle in the wind. Roaring like a bass drum in front of me the dark winds of the cyclonic winds began to take form right in front of me. Like a scene straight out of Independence Day, drivers stopped, aghast that we were seeing a tornado right in front of us. And what was worse, we could not tell if it was coming our way. Who teaches you how to read a tornado? The winds are going, the thing is moving up and down, and around, it is a tornado.

Do I stay or do I run? What do you do when you are on a flat expressway with no cover? That ran through my mind over and over again as cars hydroplaned in front of me, the interstate was beginning to flood. The expressway was so backed up it was rush hour traffic in both directions from people completely locked in the grips of the storm.

This is when you could begin to see stuff starting to fly in the air from the tornado. Bits of people's houses and cars, trees and unidentifiable things were flying across our windshields. Did someone say duck? My heart is racing and my adrenaline at an all time high. I've got to get home. But I can't. The traffic is too tight and I am too far away from the emergency lane to use it to get to my exit. And there I am, ten miles from home with no where to go. And so I accept my fate. The sentence of waiting. Which is when I looked out the right side of my car towards past the penal farm and what looks like Hickory Hill and see another tornado forming.

Help!!!