Faulkner
Member
CHAPTER 1
While in a recent severe weather training class sponsored by the Office of Emergency Management the instructor shared some data indicating that the infamous “Tornado Alley” in the mid-United States may be shifting eastward. If so, that puts my home state of Arkansas right in its midst, as if we already didn’t have enough tornado activity as it is.
I recall getting a phone call one afternoon last spring from the sheriff advising me that the forecast was developing for a rough evening of severe weather to come through our county. The sheriff said he was establishing four standby emergency response teams in each of the four quadrants of the county made up of law enforcement, the Emergency/Rescue Squad, the local fire department, and a paramedic team with ambulance. He asked that I lead the team in the northeast quadrant of the county.
It had been mostly sunny all day but for those who have experienced it, we could smell and feel the developing atmospheric instability. As sunset approached, we could see it in the sky too. Since severe weather most often moves from southwest to northeast through Arkansas, I assembled my team in a gravel pit on the downwind side of 200 foot bluff, about as safe a place as any to protect us and our emergency vehicles from what may come.
We’d been under a Tornado Watch since the sun went down, but we got reports of our first Tornado Warning just before 7:00 PM in the county about 50 miles southwest of us. Reports indicated the unstable air was leading a severe thunderstorm and reports and radar indicated funnel clouds were leading the way. The storm track showed the worst of it was heading our way and our county was right in the bullseye. Not good.
We tracked that storm for an hour and fifteen minutes watching the radar tracks on our smart phones and monitoring the traffic on the other county sheriff and state police radio nets. It was like listing to a ballgame on the radio; just south of us a twister was on the ground . . . damage was reported . . . boy, it’s raining hard and the wind is strong . . . lots of lightning and some marble sized hail . . . it’s slackening up . . . they’re sending in rescue units.
Unfortunately, it was headed straight for us!
It wasn’t raining yet as we stood outside of our vehicles in the gravel pit. The wind had picked up and so had the lightning, and with hair standing up on the back of my neck I could tell the storm was bearing down on us. Through the lightning flashes we could see the dark, swirling clouds. We could tell the big mass of the storm was moving northeast but we could also see in the flashes that clouds were swirling all about in different directions, a sure sign of the instability in the atmosphere around us.
“LOOK, a funnel cloud!” one of the firefighters shouted.
I glanced at him to see where he was pointing. Sure enough, at the next lighting flash I saw it as it was moving past us just to our north less than a quarter mile.
“Is that another one?” This from a paramedic who was pointing at the peak of the bluff we were positioned behind in the gravel pit. I could also see what appeared to be a funnel swirling directly above us.
I had a reserve deputy sheriff partnered with me. Good guy, a solid, dependable officer and I’ve known him since he started in our reserve program 8 years earlier. He’s partnered with me many times and I have always been glad to have him with me. Baker was his last name.
I had assigned Baker to monitor our radio net from my patrol car, it gets better reception from inside the gravel pit than our handheld radios.
“Baker, are we getting any reports on our net?” I asked him.
“Just a few sightings of funnel clouds still in the air. Heavy rain and some hail to the south of us, but nothing on the ground.”
“Okay, go ahead and give a short report to dispatch on what we’re seeing,” I told him.
Man, what a light show we were seeing as it was passing by directly above us. It seemed like the entire mass of heavy clouds were swirling in slow motion and the lighting was nearly constant. As I looked around it appeared that I was the only one foolish enough to be still standing outside, so I walked over and opened to door to get in my patrol car when something caught my ear and I stopped. I looked through the dark towards the sound, squinted a bit and waited for the next flash. When it did, I could see it was a solid wall of heavy rain less than a hundred yards out and headed our way. I had just jumped in the car and closed the door when the rain hit. It hit hard and heavy.
Not 30 seconds after the rain hit I heard a call to me on the radio. “Unit 1 to Unit 4.”
I picked up the microphone, “Unit 4, go ahead sheriff.” I knew the sheriff was positioned with one of the other emergency response teams that was located in the southwest quadrant, where the storm would have first entered our county.
“Unit 4, what is your situation?”
“Unit 4 to Unit 1, a heavy wall of rain just hit us. We sighted several funnel clouds in the air but nothing on the ground and no reports of any damage.”
“Unit 1 to Unit 4, the heavy rain should last less than 10 minutes as it moves past you. We actually see an occasional star in the sky here. I think we may have dodged the bullet in our county.”
“10-4 Unit 1, we’ll stand tight for now.”
It rained hard and the wind blew, but fortunately, we didn’t experience any hail. It was still raining when my cell phone rang and I looked to see it was the sheriff calling.
“Faulkner, I just got a call from Sheriff Murphey in the next county. All that stuff that just passed over us apparently came down and hit the ground about 7 or 8 miles past where your team is positioned. Sheriff Murphey said there is still one on the ground moving northeast. Could be bad up there and your team is actually closer than any first responders they have available. Take your team up and follow the storm northeast and report back.”
“Will do,” I answered.
(Continued)
While in a recent severe weather training class sponsored by the Office of Emergency Management the instructor shared some data indicating that the infamous “Tornado Alley” in the mid-United States may be shifting eastward. If so, that puts my home state of Arkansas right in its midst, as if we already didn’t have enough tornado activity as it is.
I recall getting a phone call one afternoon last spring from the sheriff advising me that the forecast was developing for a rough evening of severe weather to come through our county. The sheriff said he was establishing four standby emergency response teams in each of the four quadrants of the county made up of law enforcement, the Emergency/Rescue Squad, the local fire department, and a paramedic team with ambulance. He asked that I lead the team in the northeast quadrant of the county.
It had been mostly sunny all day but for those who have experienced it, we could smell and feel the developing atmospheric instability. As sunset approached, we could see it in the sky too. Since severe weather most often moves from southwest to northeast through Arkansas, I assembled my team in a gravel pit on the downwind side of 200 foot bluff, about as safe a place as any to protect us and our emergency vehicles from what may come.
We’d been under a Tornado Watch since the sun went down, but we got reports of our first Tornado Warning just before 7:00 PM in the county about 50 miles southwest of us. Reports indicated the unstable air was leading a severe thunderstorm and reports and radar indicated funnel clouds were leading the way. The storm track showed the worst of it was heading our way and our county was right in the bullseye. Not good.
We tracked that storm for an hour and fifteen minutes watching the radar tracks on our smart phones and monitoring the traffic on the other county sheriff and state police radio nets. It was like listing to a ballgame on the radio; just south of us a twister was on the ground . . . damage was reported . . . boy, it’s raining hard and the wind is strong . . . lots of lightning and some marble sized hail . . . it’s slackening up . . . they’re sending in rescue units.
Unfortunately, it was headed straight for us!
It wasn’t raining yet as we stood outside of our vehicles in the gravel pit. The wind had picked up and so had the lightning, and with hair standing up on the back of my neck I could tell the storm was bearing down on us. Through the lightning flashes we could see the dark, swirling clouds. We could tell the big mass of the storm was moving northeast but we could also see in the flashes that clouds were swirling all about in different directions, a sure sign of the instability in the atmosphere around us.
“LOOK, a funnel cloud!” one of the firefighters shouted.
I glanced at him to see where he was pointing. Sure enough, at the next lighting flash I saw it as it was moving past us just to our north less than a quarter mile.
“Is that another one?” This from a paramedic who was pointing at the peak of the bluff we were positioned behind in the gravel pit. I could also see what appeared to be a funnel swirling directly above us.
I had a reserve deputy sheriff partnered with me. Good guy, a solid, dependable officer and I’ve known him since he started in our reserve program 8 years earlier. He’s partnered with me many times and I have always been glad to have him with me. Baker was his last name.
I had assigned Baker to monitor our radio net from my patrol car, it gets better reception from inside the gravel pit than our handheld radios.
“Baker, are we getting any reports on our net?” I asked him.
“Just a few sightings of funnel clouds still in the air. Heavy rain and some hail to the south of us, but nothing on the ground.”
“Okay, go ahead and give a short report to dispatch on what we’re seeing,” I told him.
Man, what a light show we were seeing as it was passing by directly above us. It seemed like the entire mass of heavy clouds were swirling in slow motion and the lighting was nearly constant. As I looked around it appeared that I was the only one foolish enough to be still standing outside, so I walked over and opened to door to get in my patrol car when something caught my ear and I stopped. I looked through the dark towards the sound, squinted a bit and waited for the next flash. When it did, I could see it was a solid wall of heavy rain less than a hundred yards out and headed our way. I had just jumped in the car and closed the door when the rain hit. It hit hard and heavy.
Not 30 seconds after the rain hit I heard a call to me on the radio. “Unit 1 to Unit 4.”
I picked up the microphone, “Unit 4, go ahead sheriff.” I knew the sheriff was positioned with one of the other emergency response teams that was located in the southwest quadrant, where the storm would have first entered our county.
“Unit 4, what is your situation?”
“Unit 4 to Unit 1, a heavy wall of rain just hit us. We sighted several funnel clouds in the air but nothing on the ground and no reports of any damage.”
“Unit 1 to Unit 4, the heavy rain should last less than 10 minutes as it moves past you. We actually see an occasional star in the sky here. I think we may have dodged the bullet in our county.”
“10-4 Unit 1, we’ll stand tight for now.”
It rained hard and the wind blew, but fortunately, we didn’t experience any hail. It was still raining when my cell phone rang and I looked to see it was the sheriff calling.
“Faulkner, I just got a call from Sheriff Murphey in the next county. All that stuff that just passed over us apparently came down and hit the ground about 7 or 8 miles past where your team is positioned. Sheriff Murphey said there is still one on the ground moving northeast. Could be bad up there and your team is actually closer than any first responders they have available. Take your team up and follow the storm northeast and report back.”
“Will do,” I answered.
(Continued)
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