The Weather Notebook: Too Close for Comfort

Too Close for Comfort
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Dave Thurlow, Host

Hi, I'm Dave Thurlow and this is The Weather Notebook. On the night of May 3, when tornadoes swept through Oklahoma City, it was a sleepless night for commentator Bob Henson of Boulder, Colorado:

"It was a cool Colorado night. In two days, I'd be leaving for a family reunion in Oklahoma. But that night, I learned of a catastrophe - the worst tornadoes in years, right where I'd grown up.


May 3rd, 1999

My mind jumped to my brother Jim and his family. They lived in a trailer park in Del City, one of the hardest-hit towns. Phone lines were jammed, so there was no way to tell if Jim was OK. My emotions were torn. One side insisted Jim was fine, and the other side asked what made me so sure. Beneath it all, I was antsy, anxious, nervous.

As it turned out, Jim and his family made it through the nightmare safe and sound. The twister barreled to within a few blocks of their home and then, amazingly, swung left. Jim's wife and son took shelter in their neighborhood school; they crouched in the lower level while the tornado laid waste to the section above them. The next week, we traded stories over Mexican food. We were happy to be reunited but aware that others weren't so lucky.

That day I saw neighborhoods that had been chewed up and spit out. It was humbling to see how blithely nature dismantled the things people had built so carefully. Oklahomans know how to "chuckle at catastrophe," as the Wizard of Oz put it. But like Dorothy Gayle, many feel like they've been blown into a world that suddenly makes no sense. It'll take more than two seconds and a click of their heels to get back to normal."

Bob Henson is a storm chaser and frequent Weather Notebook contributor. Our show is underwritten by Subaru, the beauty of all wheel drive with major support provided by the National Science Foundation.