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GW Micro “storming” the state of Illinois
by Jeremy Curry on Wednesday, June 4 2008
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.
