Scared!

Tonight is the first time I was actually scared driving. I had a second o1 today I’m 60 miles out with 1 and half hours on my clock. It starts thundering and lighting then raining, rain where u can’t see the road and the wind was just whipping the rain. I’m on Mississippi 15 not much out here. I found a ramp and pulled over. My phone is sending out warnings.. we are under tornado watch till 3am. I let dispatch know where I’m at and that I’m staying right here.

Donna, anybody would be scared in your situation. Let us know that you are safe when the storm passes.

Leave your marker lights on to he seen.

Call me of u need to, ill make you laugh

I got flashers and park lights on. I’m gonna try to sleep. I’ve got a load to pick up in the morning and drive 578 miles by 1300 the next day.

Hopefully everything turned out good.

I was in Rayville, LA when that system hit us. Dumped so much water that I had to move my truck from the pond that formed around it. Lightning strikes all around me & yes, tornado warnings saying to find shelter. Hope everything worked out for you Donna.

All that said, I'm glad I wasnt further north where they've gotten nonstop snow.

I was in MO last night this morning and sleet then heavy snow...wind knocked down 2 utlility polea at a flying j on 70 :(

I was in MO last night this morning and sleet then heavy snow...wind knocked down 2 utlility polea at a flying j on 70 :(

When I first got to the Pilot in Rayville, I parked facing west. The weather channel basically said that everything was coming that way. I moved the truck so that the glass would be facing east to avoid any broken glass. Luckily it was just that hellish rainstorm that Donna was stuck in.

Funny thing is that I was gonna shut down 20 miles down the road but trucker path was saying that pilot had some spot but Rayville had plenty. I remembered your comment about listen to your gut & lucky for me I did. Not 2 minutes after I parked it facing east, the skies just opened up.

I grew up in the midwest... for years when people would ask me where I grew up i would say "in the basement of my home in the midwest" we started out with dozens of trees on our property growing up and ended up with only a few when we moved away... lost a couple of cars from trees falling on them. so move forward to 2011 on a stormy night in Kansas ... like that never happens... I had just turned westbound onto I 40 with what looked like a big nasty storm ahead... 10pm ... student in the back ... she had been sleeping for about 4 hrs... after about an hour this storm just kept getting stronger, and off to the right every time the lighting light up the sky I could see this low cloud off to my right which kept getting closer and bigger.

it wasn't long before my student from Oakland ( who never really experienced any big storms like this) woke up and asked me if we should be driving in this... and my response was " hell no" ... I stopped at the next bridge overpass and putt on my flashers... a couple of big trucks passed along with a couple of trucks pulling travel trailers... after about 20 minutes the storm passed and we got headed west... and it didn't take long to find all those trucks that had passed on their sides.

I would of been in the same boat...

Park under a bridge to get shelter if you ever find yourself in that situation again...

It wasn't long after that I was in the safety office and the safety manager handed me a picture of one of our company trucks laying on it side in a ditch... and he asked me a simple question.... "what's wrong with this picture"

I replied ... "there are no tire tracks behind the truck.... must of been a hell of a ride.

He didn't stop and the tornado lifted the entire loaded truck and he ended up out in the field ...

... note... stop ... find shelter... and live to talk about it another day

Never a good idea to park under any bridge or overpass in a tornado, as winds there will be higher and moving from multiple directions.