Gumby productions proudly presents...The Storm of the Century
“Bye, have a good day,” Al said quietly to his sleeping family as he walked out the door and got in his car. He had to be at broadcast studio at five in the morning because he broadcasted at seven.
About half way to work, he noticed the sky was darkening over the small city on the out skirts of Huston, Texas. It’s just another rainstorm. We get a lot of these this time of year, he thought to himself and kept driving toward it, but little did he know it was the biggest storm if the century.
Wow! It’s raining like mad out here! He thought when he got under the big, dark cloud, only one or two miles away from work. The wind grew more violet every second and it nearly pushed him off the road. He could barely see with all the rain in the air and on his windshield. By now, the rain was coming down so hard he could only see off the hood of the car, five to ten feet, and he is only going 5 m.p.h.
Finally, he made it to the parking lot of the broadcast studio an hour later. “This is a good day to forget the umbrella, it would be useless,” He said out loud to himself. “I can’t stay in here forever. 1, 2, 3 go!” And with that, he burst the car door open and ran as fast as he could at the front door of the building, only one hundred feet away. The wind was whipping rain into his face like little bullets out of a mouse-sized gun. It didn’t take him long to get there, but it was like running a marathon with the wind pushing him back and his water-soaked clothes weighing him down.
When he got inside, he looked like he just went for a swim he was so wet. He got to his desk, still soaking wet, and turned on his computer. The only sound was from the weather outside and the coffee pot in the next room. While he was waiting for his computer to boot up, he went to get some coffee across the hall.
Finally it booted up, he turned on the radar and gasped at the size of the cell. It spanned from the western edge of New Mexico all the way to the eastern part of Texas, where Al’s home was.
He stood up and walked down the hall to his co-worker’s room to show him what he saw. “Do you see what I see?” Al said in fright pulling up the radar on the computer.
“Whoa!” the man said in shock. “Look at all the black, there is got to be lots of tornadoes in this thing. I can’t wait till the broadcast at six.”
“How long do you think it will last?” Al said with a tremor in his voice.
“I don’t know,” he replied. “Four or five days.”
“Well I guess I'll let you go on with your business since you have the morning shift now,” Al said as he left the room. Wow! I’ve never seen anything like this, ever, he thought to himself thinking of the other big storms in the past. Maybe after the broadcast, I could take the rest of the off now that they hired a new person for the night shift. He stepped into his office just a few rooms down the hall and took a sip of the hot coffee. He sat down and looked at the screen trying not to lose his train of thought.
There were many places where tornadoes could pop up at any time. Darn, if only I could get out of work sooner. He thought impatiently. At that moment his co-worker peeked his head around the corner, “Wish me luck!”
“Good luck,” Al called back. Well, I guess I should start on my broadcast. He thought to himself.
“On the air in ten,” the producer called out to him forty-five minutes later. “Will you be ready?”
“Yeah,” Al called behind him. He walked down stairs to the dressing room with his papers and presentation in hand.
“What do you got today?” the dresser asked. “What’s the deal with this storm?”
“Well, the storm will probably last for about four or five days non-stop with lots of tornado warnings along with it,” Al replied.
The dresser shrieked in surprise.
“Yeah,” he said calmly as she began combing his dark brown hair and fixing his big glasses.
“You’ll have to watch the broadcast to get the major details.”
“On the air in five!” shouted the producer across the hall.
“Well, that will do it,” the dresser said.
“Thanks, see you tomorrow,” he said as he walked out of the room and down the hall to the broadcast studio.
“One minute! Places everyone, places,” the producer called out to everyone. “And five, four, three two, one action!” And with that, everyone got out of the picture and into their places.
“It looks like we have storm warning for most of New Mexico and most of Texas. Here is the map of the cities. All of the black is a tornado on the ground and the purple means a tornado is about to form.” Al began. “For us in Alvarado, this will probably last about a week, plus or minus. My assistant will keep you posted on the storm throughout the day, back to you Jeff.”
After the shoot, Al packed up and said goodbye to everyone. He walked into the coatroom to prepare to sprint out into the rain again back across the parking lot. On the count of three, he ran into the storming rain, but this time the wind was at his back. “Whew!” He said in relief when he got there. “Now off to Big Lake only an hour away.” His happiness was short-lived when he realized that it was raining even harder than it was when he got there.
“Five more miles to go,” he said out loud his voice muffled by the pounding of the rain on the windshield and the local rock station on the radio. The rain slowly switched over to hail over the next three miles. Then it all stopped. “What the heck!” he said confused. “The radar shows hail the size of gulf balls. I guess I’ll check it out; I’m only a half-mile away from the developing storm cell.”
“Huh! According to the radar on my laptop, I’m right under it!” He said when he got there.
“Maybe I’ll sit here and look around; after all it is supposed to rain all week.” Al couldn’t sit down for long, he had to get up and walk around to check the scenery out around him. All of the sudden, he heard a big gush of wind and was lifted off his feet and into the air. He screamed as all of the sticks and stones flew by his head.
“Mooo!” shrieked a cow going by him at a much faster speed.
He yelled again when a stick hit him in the side, then silence.
“Wh-Where am I?” he stuttered when he woke up and hour later. “What happened? Where’s my car?” He struggled to his feet and looked for his car. “There it is way over there.” He said. He got up very slowly so he wouldn’t hurt himself more than he already was. When he hobbled over to his car, he saw what had happened. The back window was blown out, one of the hubcaps was blown off, and there were several dents on the side of the car.
“Shoot!” he yelled and got into his car. In about forty-five minutes it began to rain really hard again and the inside of the car was starting to get wet from the window. “Well, that’s it for storm chasing.” He said with a smirk on his face.
