Some friends and I went for a picnic at Bogue Chitto State Park this week, securing a picnic shelter overlooking the wide Bogue Chitto River. It was in a beautiful spot, a large open grassy area with a few trees, benches, and a huge sandy beach, with interesting pieces of gravel embedded in the sand.
We spread out the lunch goodies on the picnic table, then, while we were eating lunch, a whirlwind appeared in the center of the grassy area. It was not a small whirlwind. It was about 40 feet across and quickly picked up a large number of leaves, swirling them around and around. These whirlwinds are nothing to worry about, as they often appear on large open areas and soon disappear. This one, though, kept on going. We watched it for a minute, than I said, "Okay, I'm going to run out and get in the middle of it."
Moments later, I was standing (or trying to remain standing) in the middle of this mini-tornado, with more and more leaves swirling around me. This turned out not to be such a good idea. Not only was I being buffeted by 45 mile an hour winds, but I was continually getting lots of leaves thrown in my face. I ran around the best I could within the whirlwind, with my friends looking on from the picnic table.
However, the whirlwind slowly drifted closer and closer to the picnic shelter, and my friends began bracing themselves. The 40 mile per hour winds hit the picnic table and cups and bags went flying. Fortunately all the food items had remained sitting in their Tupperware containers and the lids had already been put on them to keep the flies off the food. So while I began chasing a large plastic supermarket bag that had gotten swept up, my friends all put their hands and arms on top of the Tupperware containers to hold them down against the maelstrom.
We only lost a couple of cups and a container of crackers, which the winds scattered across the landscape. After I ran around trying to catch the plastic bag for a few dozen whirlwind revolutions, I finally stood in its path and snagged it as it flew by.
The whirlwind died down about 20 seconds later, disappearing as quickly as it had popped up. We think it running into a sturdily built picnic shelter structure helped to break it apart.
I went around trying to pick up as many crackers as I could, but the ants got on them pretty quickly, so we decided to leave some of the crackers for the ants and the birds.
This wasn't the first time I had been in a whirlwind. In the 1997 tornado that hit Covington, I was in a downtown building with several others when the funnel went overhead. I remember looking out the window and seeing the rain go sideways. The next thing we knew was that sections of the roof were being ripped off and large tree limbs were poking through the ceiling. After we all settled down, I walked around a few blocks surveying the damage. The parking space where I usually parked my car was occupied by someone else's car and a huge tree was lying across the top of it. My car was parked about thirty feet away, somewhat protected by a concrete wall. Trees were atop cars all across the downtown area, corners of buildings had been torn up, but most of all, the second floor of Hebert's Cleaners had collapsed on top of the first floor.
My first close encounter with a tornado, however, was in 1990. I was camping in a campground in Pell City, Alabama, and around mid-afternoon decided to take a nap. An hour later I woke up, stepped outside my trailer, and noticed a lot of people standing around looking towards the lake. I turn to see what they were looking at and before us was a scene of widespread destruction. Dozens of travel trailers had been turned over, tossed on their sides, and some were ripped apart. Long strips of pink insulation dangled from the trees and littered the ground. The tornado had passed just south of me about 100 feet. I had slept through it. Good thing I was in an Airstream travel trailer, or it might have been toppled over as well.
