by Akart, Bobby
The car shook and was almost forced off the road as a strong wind gust broadsided it. They’d driven past the small community of Gravel Switch and were on the final straight stretch of road to the church.
Chapman raced onto the main highway with a little too much speed. The lightweight rear end of the Mustang slid around, forcing him to wrestle the steering wheel back and forth to gain control. Once the tires gained traction, he accelerated again and hydroplaned down the highway without regard for their safety.
Hail began to pummel the roof of the car and pelted the road around them.
“This can’t be happening! It’s still raining!” shouted Chapman as he leaned forward to see the road.
He’d chased hundreds of tornados across the country. Despite geographic location, they all had certain telltale signs during their formation. Wall clouds. Large hail without rain. The proverbial calm before the storm where the winds die down and the air becomes very still. The frightening roar similar to a freight train coming right at you. And then the funnel develops, picking up debris, houses, people. Anything in its path.
Chapman knew tornados. He’d studied their history, too. He’d interviewed people who’d witnessed the two-and-a-half-mile behemoth that had touched down in El Reno, Oklahoma, back in 2013. He’d read the account of the three-hundred-mile-per-hour devastating F5 that hit near Oklahoma City in ’99.
However, he’d never seen anything like this. This tornado, or supercell, or hurricane, wasn’t defined by boundaries. It was as wide as the eye could see. It was slowly churning the landscape and buildings to their south and was moving steadily toward the northeast.
He continued driving west on the Perryville highway, back toward Texas, where the family waited. He hoped they’d seen the change in conditions and took time to seek shelter. He hoped that he and Isabella could get to his family before the tempest got to them.
“I see the church!” shouted Isabella so she could be heard over the wind, rain, and hail.
“Yes! Hold on!” Chapman struggled to slow the car without throwing it into an uncontrollable skid. He tapped the brakes, using the manual transmission to reduce its speed before he turned off the road and up the incline toward the church. As they reached the top of the hill, he smiled.
His family were survivors.
He spun gravel as he tore up the hill to join them. Some were leading horses into the church building, a recently expanded, two-story, all redbrick structure with smallish windows. Others were working together to unload the wagons and hustle their supplies inside.
Chapman skidded to a stop and joined Isabella as he hastily exited the car to help. Hailstones hammered their bodies hard enough to leave bruises and open cuts.
“We’re almost done,” advised Tommy, who was out of breath but continued to carry the heavy ammo boxes into the church.
Chapman shouted back as he received two more ammo boxes from Kristi, “Good! It’s coming!”
As if on cue, a strong wind gust threatened to topple the wagon, knocking Kristi backwards onto the wooden floor.
“Dammit!” she complained.
Isabella climbed in to help her.
“Yeah. I landed on the best possible body part—my ass!”
Isabella laughed and helped her up. The two women worked together to move everything to the back gate, and within a couple of minutes, the second wagon was emptied.
Everyone gathered under the porte cochere at the front entrance of the church.
Chapman looked at the sky as the massive storm approached. “We only have a few minutes. The wagons will never make it.”
Tommy had a thought. “What if we pull them behind the building? Will the structure shield them from the wind?”
Chapman shrugged and motioned to Levi. “Maybe. It’s all we’ve got. Come on, it’ll take all three of us!”
Tommy raced after Chapman and Levi, pointing at the car as he went. “Somebody move that underneath this roof.”
The three men worked together, moving the first wagon to the back side, and then they pulled the other behind the parish house. Chapman’s theory was to hedge their bets as to the effects of the winds by placing them in two different locations. Even though the parish house was a smaller structure, it was located north of the church building and might receive some shielding effect.
They raced back to the entrance and slammed the church doors behind them against the coming deluge. With the guidance of the pastor, they found loose furniture to pile in front of the doors so they didn’t blow open.
Once secured, they huddled together in the choir room behind the altar. It was windowless and had a single entrance, which they pushed two desks against. Then, with a single lit candle to illuminate the space and to allow Chapman to monitor negative wind pressure against the building, they huddled together and prayed.
Chapter 26
Texas, Kentucky
Chapman had been interviewed hundreds of times throughout his career, and one of the most common questions he got from the media was What’s the difference between a tornado and a hurricane? He usually began his response in the same manner. He’d respond, It comes down to three variables—speed, area of destruction and longevity.
Tornado wind speeds could reach three hundred miles per hour, while even the most powerful hurricane-force winds were usually less than half of that. Tornadoes impacted a fairly tight, small area, while hurricanes could cut a wide swath of destruction. Finally, tornadoes often stopped as quickly as they started. Even those recorded to last more than ten minutes, considered rare and long lived, passed over an immediate area quickly, carving a path across flat ground. Hurricanes loved to loom and chew and devour everything underneath them until a stronger high-pressure system nudged them along.
That morning, the Boone family, their friends, and the elderly couple experienced the worst of all three variables. The winds speeds that came with the well-formed hurricane were in excess of two hundred miles per hour. It moved slowly, methodically, in no particular hurry to go anywhere except for the fact the counterclockwise rotation had a tendency to wander and a fifty-mile-per-hour jet stream carried it along.
The massive hurricane made landfall in Louisiana and should’ve lost its structure as it came across land. However, the Mississippi River had flooded to twice its normal width. The warm waters that had accumulated from the excessive rainfall sat on the surface of the flatlands of Mississippi, providing fuel to the storm.
Like a starving bear, the tempest devoured the warm, moist air for hundreds of miles on both sides of the Mississippi, pulling the fuel towards its eye in a massive counterclockwise spiral.
As the warm air from the ground combined with the low pressure of the hurricane, it resulted in a massive twist that caught a head of steam with the aid of the jet stream. Racing toward the northeast at fifty miles an hour, the stream’s normal course in late September, the upper-level winds carried the massive low-pressure system with it. It was the most potent part of the hurricane and it packed a wallop of a punch.
The destruction, if it could’ve been calculated, was in the hundreds of billions of dollars. The death toll—again, incalculable—was in the hundreds of thousands. Had storm meteorologists been able to track the storm and quantify the toll it exacted on America’s heartland, it would’ve gone down as the most devastating storm in history.
At least, so far.
Throughout the ordeal, the storm wreaked havoc on the church. The windows were imploding with the force of being struck by a shotgun blast. The horses were continuously agitated, screaming in pain as they were pelted with bits of glass and stinging debris.
The entire building shuddered and creaked as the strong winds tried to lift the roof off the block foundation into the heavens. As the windows were blown out, the winds circulated inside the chapel. The powerful squalls found their way throughout the hallways of the church building and continuously blew under the door to the choir room.
When a particularly strong gust hit t
he door, the lock broke, the desks were shoved inward and the candle was toppled onto the floor, leaving them in the dark. The kids shrieked when this happened, and their dad quickly illuminated the battery-powered Coleman lantern. Dust particles swirled in the air as the structure took a beating, shaking the foundation to its core.
The outside walls rattled and groaned under the pressure. The extreme low pressure of the hurricane engulfed the building, causing everyone’s ears to pop as the ungodly roar of the eye wall passed above them.
During the fifty-five grueling minutes the storm relentlessly attacked the church—an eternity when you waited to be sucked into the sky—nobody moved. They clung to each other in utter fear, praying to survive the wrath of Mother Nature.
Even after the winds subsided somewhat, the rain continued to pummel the building like a thousand angry fists demanding entry. When water began to drip through the ceiling of the choir room, panic set in for the children as they feared being crushed by what was above them.
Tommy whispered to Chapman, “Should I check it out?”
Chapman paused before responding, “Let’s wait a little longer.”
After another five minutes, there was no evidence of wind, and oddly the sound of the rain seemed to disappear.
Tommy was anxious. “Whadya think?”
Chapman relented. “Okay, but just us. Levi, will you push the desks back in place after we leave? I don’t want to chance you guys getting hurt.”
“But it’s over, right?” asked Carly.
“Probably, but this was unlike any storm I’ve ever experienced. It had the punch of a tornado but the lifespan of a hurricane. Crazy.”
He patted Tommy on the shoulder, and they worked with Levi to move the desks out of the way, and they slipped into the hallway. As instructed, Levi pushed the desks back until they were given the all clear.
The two men made their way into the chapel, and as they exited the hallway nearest the altar, their eyes grew wide. In a way, what they observed was expected, but in other ways, it was not.
As was his nature, Chapman’s first inclination was to look up. The galvanized metal roof had been ripped from the building, leaving only the engineered roof trusses that were both nailed and strapped to the block walls. However, the plywood sheathing and half of the roof panels were gone.
And so was the rain. For over two weeks, they’d been pelted by moisture from above, an incessant watering that had soaked them through and through. However, as Chapman wandered into the chapel amidst the agitated horses and debris strewn about, he felt an odd sense of relief, as the rain had finally stopped and grayish-blue skies revealed themselves.
Yet something was amiss. It was too calm. It was as still as death.
He furrowed his brow as he peered through the walls that had crumbled under the force of the storm. He tried to get a look to the northwest, the general direction the funnel-like storm was headed.
It appeared odd. It had the wall-like cloud structure associated with a massive tornado. Puzzled, he carefully but quickly made his way across the chapel toward the front of the church. Under the narthex, the windows had blown out as well, so he was able to see clearly to the south.
Chapman gasped. Another wall of clouds approached, accompanied by lightning strikes zigzagging from side to side, creating a bluish light in the distance. Funnel clouds formed and tried to break away from the wall, making a loud hissing noise.
Tommy, who’d joined his side, asked, “Is that another one?”
“No!” Chapman exclaimed. He turned and grabbed Tommy by the arm. “It’s not over!”
Chapter 27
Texas, Kentucky
Chapman pounded on the door; his unexpected arrival outside the choir room startled everyone inside. The kids reacted by crying and Kristi shrieked. Behind the door, the sound of Levi and the pastor struggling with furniture could be heard over the howling winds that were ramping up.
“Hurry!” shouted Chapman.
“You said it was over!” shouted Levi.
“I was wrong,” said Chapman. The door had been opened just enough for the guys to slide through the gap if they turned sideways. Seconds later, they slammed the door shut and moved the desks back against it.
“Everyone, huddle in the middle,” instructed Tommy as he picked up the lantern to encourage them to pull together.
Both hurricanes and tornadoes have eyes, an area of mostly calm weather in the center of the storm. The most violent conditions occur in the eye wall, the area directly surrounding the eye. The fact the eye had passed over them for several minutes indicated to Chapman this storm was indeed a hurricane and it was massive, most likely hundreds of miles wide.
“Hold each other tight!” Chapman had raised his voice to be heard over the approaching eye wall. The low rumble was turning into a deafening roar. “The roof is gone!”
“Oh, Lord, please protect us!” exclaimed Sarah as the walls began to shake again. Pieces of drywall fell off the ceiling and began to pelt their heads. A large chunk fell and hit the pastor’s wife, tearing a gash in her forehead.
“Make it stop!” screamed Rachel as she clung to her mother.
They were crying and praying, but mostly, begging to survive. Brooke became agitated, bounding away from Kristi in a frantic effort to escape. Then, she abruptly calmed her nerves and clung to Kristi’s side.
Chapman took his mind elsewhere, reflecting on his life. He’d been unquestionably mesmerized by storms. Oddly, he’d sought happiness by chasing tornadoes in particular. They taxed his intellect and placed him nose to nose with one of the most incredible, spectacular forces of nature.
It was also a fix for Chapman Boone, adrenaline junkie. It wasn’t until that fateful day in Texas that he realized stalking tornadoes could kill him. Even if chasing the storms didn’t leave him with physical scars or a need for a wheelchair, it was hard to escape unscathed emotionally.
He’d witnessed death and destruction that oftentimes made him physically ill in addition to saddening his heart. It prevented him from having a meaningful relationship because, invariably, any girl he tried to date grew tired of playing second fiddle to his obsession.
After his partner’s death, he began to question whether shadowing tornadoes or standing face-to-face on a beach with a hurricane approaching was sane. He finally asked himself, “What is chasing violent, crazy, exhilarating forces of nature worth to me? My life?”
Chapman took some time to reflect on his career and life in general, but he eventually went back to what he loved, albeit with new rules of common sense and self-preservation being applied.
What was happening now was completely different from his experiences in the field for The Weather Channel. He was performing a duty, a function as a meteorologist and news reporter. Now he was surrounded by the ones he loved, providing him a wholly different perspective.
Oddly, as the southwest quadrant of the massive hurricane passed over them, he managed to chuckle. He swore, and he meant it that time, that he’d turn in his resignation to The Weather Channel as soon as it was over.
The walls adjacent to the choir room began to shake and were being pounded like a burly intruder trying to fight his way in. Levi recognized the cause immediately.
“It’s the horses. They’ve crammed their way into the hallway and they’re hitting the wall.”
When the outside wall shook like it had been hit by a truck, the group screamed in unison. A telephone pole had been snapped in half, and the strong winds impaled it into the wall. It broke through the brick and block and now protruded through the wall of the choir room.
“Come into the corner,” ordered Chapman. Everyone crawled on their hands and knees through the fallen ceiling until they were gathered together in a corner opposite the outside wall. In a calm voice, he added, “Cover your heads and close your eyes. Levi, Carly, lie on top of your kids. Please, everyone, lock arms with one another and hold on.”
A couple of them mumbled okay as they all f
ollowed his instructions. Eleven people held one another with all their strength as more parts of the structurally compromised church began to be ripped apart.
The counterclockwise rotation of the wind sucked the impaled telephone pole out and carried it away, leaving a gaping hole in the wall that allowed debris to fly inside. Glass, pieces of brick, and sheets of rain pummeled the group for thirty more minutes until, once again, the wind subsided.
Finally, they breathed a collective sigh of relief. However, they’d done that before. They remained skeptical as to whether it was over, but the whinny of a horse provided some hope.
Chapman was the first to stand as he made his way through the dim light to the opening in the wall. He studied the skies. He stuck his head through the gaping hole and watched as the enormous storm moved away from them in a northeasterly direction.
In the distance, he could see mature, sixty-to-eighty-foot-tall pines, three to four feet in diameter, violently corkscrewed in the wind and then lifted off the ground like an intercontinental ballistic missile emerging from an underground silo in North Dakota. One after another, they were pulled skyward and then carried off toward Lexington.
He turned his attention to the south. Unlike earlier, there wasn’t an indication of another wall-cloud formation. Instead, it was more of the same—rain.
Same shit, different day.
Chapter 28
Texas, Kentucky
Millions of people had watched the hugely successful movie Twister, starring Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt. Depictions of devastation following tornados left lasting impressions on many who didn’t live in regions of the country susceptible to that form of severe weather. Throughout the movie, other scenes showed people emerging from storm cellars or beneath piles of rubble to unexpected sunshine and relative calm, relieved to see their home still standing when others were flattened. Such was not the case in Texas, Kentucky, that day.