I wanted to write about one of the most hair raising, nerve wracking experiences that I’ve ever had. I had long since been interested and otherwise frightened or in awe of the weather. I was 16 years old when this happened. In typical fashion, this occurred sometime in late spring/early summer.
A good friend of mine wanted to hit the arcade. I lived 25 miles from the nearest one at the time. He offered to come pick me up and so I took him up on it. I want to say it was roughly 4pm when we left my house. The drive through Zebulon, GA was uneventful. We were likely talking about video games or girls. Those two things are inseparable to most young men of that age. I took notice of something in the sky, to the west. It didn’t look very abnormal but I kept my eye on it.
As we reached the halfway point between Zebulon and Griffin on Highway 19 the clouds to the west went from peculiar to slightly ominous. I decided to make the comment that the sky was looking a bit rough. My friend didn’t seem all that phased about it. We turned onto a little side road to head towards Hwy 362. If you’re familiar with the area, then you know the road I’m talking about ( I hope! ). It was at this point that my weariness went to worry-ness.
What keyed me in to be a bit concerned? It’s 4:30pm. It’s a late spring afternoon. I think I should be able to look at the floorboard of the vehicle and see my feet. I couldn’t. It was that dark. It’s that kind of dark where the sky in one direction is that incredibly dark blue/grey (some would say black sky). In the other direction it’s almost blindingly light. Clouds and sky become somewhat indistinguishable and all seem to run together. Well at any rate. I can’t see my feet and I’ve been down this road before, in a sense.
Years prior to this I remember riding out a bad storm with my dad in his truck. Much like what I was currently experience, it’d become so dark outside that the floorboard was shroud in darkness.
So, I made the comment that if we couldn’t see the floorboard, perhaps we should turn around and go back. My friend brushed it off and kept pressing on, towards the heart of the beast. Since we did not heed the warning of mother nature, she was going to show us first hand what we were dealing with. Get ready for it.
The first thing that happened was the wind. There was construction and house building just off the road (the one that cuts between 19 and 362). We saw dirt and gravel being lifted straight up into the air. The site of grey/white dust against a dark sky looked ghastly. It was as if spirits were being lifted up from the very Earth. At that point the wind went horizontal and the wispy clouds of dust were blown to pieces. At this point we encountered the driving rain. Then came the hail, pelting the vehicle mercilessly. I think he was now convinced to rethink driving in these conditions.
We were now taking evasion action. No more arcade for us; we just wanted to make it out alive. We turned onto another side road that would take us back to 19/41. We’d head that way then go back south towards Zebulon, where he lived. About half a mile from the 19/41 intersection (where Ingles is) we encountered something worse than hail: rocks. Yes, rocks from gravel piles near the road were being hurled at us. He got a few dings from that but fortunately we moved through it and now we’d just deal with the quarter size ice balls instead.
The whole time were cursing, shrieking, freaking out, etc. We saw very few people on the road and could only assume those that were out in this were equally as freaked out as we were. Then again, we were two young teenagers where our world was, well, girls and video games. OMG, this isn’t what we signed up for! Eeek!
When we reached the intersection the light was out as I recall. The signs were twisting violently in the winds. We drove right through the intersection. I think I remember yelling “GO GO GO”. Instead of stopping, like we should have, we kept moving. When we got to the road that would have taken us to his house, a tree was down. In desperation we turned down a smaller dirt road, where again, a tree was down. We were trapped. We backed up and got out of there. We finally made our way to a small church parking lot and sat the rest out.
For the next half an hour, every time it thundered, we jumped. Our hearts were pounding. We were nervously laughing and cursing… in the church parking lot of all places. We felt like we’d driven through a war zone. It was no laughing matter getting pelted by driving rain/hail and rocked by 60mph+ winds. We’d made it though and felt we could relax, though it took some time to truly relax.
We drove back into Griffin, armed with a VHS camcorder to document some damage. We saw a road sign that had completely twisted 360 degrees. It was facing the right direction but the sign post was twisted completely around. Traffic lights were out all over the place. Debris was all over the roads (i.e. twigs, branches, leaves and anything of that nature). We headed to Bunjees Books & Comics to talk to the owner. When we walked in we noticed some of the ceiling tiles had been knocked loose. I want to say that he told us the door had blown open.
You see, the storm passed fairly quickly for most. We, on the other hand turned around and rode WITH the storm. We would later find out we’d driven through a severe thunderstorm We’d have been far better off hitting it head on and pushing through it. Lesson learned. That wouldn’t be the last time I encountered hellish driving conditions in a storm though.
It’s things like that that make me appreciate and respect mother nature. Now, to look into that Storm Chasing vacation package!