GW Micro Blog

This week, I’ve been covering the state of Illinois from top
to bottom to show off the new products, including some brief glimpses of
Window-Eyes 7.0. Yesterday, I was in
Chicago all day, and everything went great.
The appointments today also went very well. However, on the way to Springfield, things
got a bit spooky.

I was with our dealer, Mike Ellis, and our driver Joe. We could tell that the sky was getting dark
and it was going to storm; certainly nothing we are not used to in
Indiana. As the storm got closer, I
could tell there was a problem when I was actually able to see the cloud
clearly. It was only about 100 feet
above the road, and as it passed over the car, it appeared to start spinning
backward. I could no longer see the
cloud because it was over top of the car.
Just then, the car started to shake back and forth; left to right. At the same time, I began to feel the vent next
to my leg get warm and then cold; warm and then cold. We all were very scared that the cloud was
going to quickly go from funnel to tornado.
We kept moving hoping we could move south until the rain was so heavy
that we just couldn’t see anything at all, and had to stop. The storm eventually passed, and we continued
on our merry way, grateful that our prayers had been answered and we had been
kept safe – well, at least safe until later in the evening.

This evening, we checked in to our hotel in Jacksonville,
finished up some work, and then went out to eat dinner. We watched as again as the sky grew dark, and
rain moved in. We finished eating, and
walked back outside, and started to joke about getting in the car, so Joe could
outrun the next tornado. As soon as the
word tornado came out of Mike’s mouth, the tornado sirens literally began
screaming. This time, it wasn’t just a
funnel cloud. We scurried back to the
hotel where we learned that a tornado warning had been issued due to tornado
sightings and they were headed our way.
Most of the hotel guests started making their way down to the main floor
for safety, as the sky grew very black, and almost evil looking. We kept checking the radar, and checking the sky outside. The police shut down the interstate that was
three tenths of a mile from our hotel, and weather spotters sat watching the
sky to report a tornado to the national weather service. Apparently, Mike and Joe felt that things
would be fine, and went off to bed. But
not me – I was making sure I was on the main floor. Numerous low clouds appeared as if a tornado
was going to form. I thought I was going
to see one take shape right before my very low vision eyes. Myself and the other concerned guests were going
back and forth between outside and the news reports that could be seen on the
TV inside when the satellite was not interrupted. The Internet continued to stay up and running,
and the front desk employee saw that www.noaa.gov
was saying to evacuate from the part of the county we were in. As the storm marched on, an oil depository of
some sort was struck by lightning and started ablaze. Just as most of the danger was past, and the
sky was lighting up with lightning everywhere, we heard the Jacksonville fire
department come on TV to report that had followed a tornado that went just
south of Jacksonville to a small town.
The very nice lady at the front desk was a bit shaken when she told us
that the location was just one mile south of the hotel.

All the while, Mike and Joe have been sleeping calmly in
their rooms, and have had nothing to fear.
That is, of course, until I tell them tomorrow how close we came to not
being here.