I Was Very Nearly Killed in a POWERFUL Microburst in Elgin IL Today

Whooo. Exciting! You will have something to talk about for many days in town.

You are alive, all you got out of it are some really good memories, something to talk about years from now with your grandchildren. Adrenaline is a rush.

Oh, glad to hear you didn't get killed. If you had you wouldn't be posting your experience.

a reply to: Aqualung2012

Geez, those are some CRAZY pics (and a beautiful neighborhood, btw- sorry for the loss of those trees!)

Considering those power lines I can see intermingled with trees, did you guys lose power?

In any case, glad you lived to tell about it. And a warning to us all, not to take Mama Nature for granted. She can deliver quite a storm!!!

Yeah, that storm was crazy! Upper 90's and humid as hell. So humid your eyes were foggy. And then....

I was outside putting a new mirror on a truck when the wind started picking up. I said, oh man, that feels good. Got the mirror on, grabbed my tools, turned around and was shocked that the sky was black. Looked like a wall of doom!

By the time I threw the broken mirror away, put my tools up and headed back outside, the storm was here and ugly. I'm four miles from where the tornado that ripped Washington apart early this year. It looked just like that day!

Me and a couple employees went outside to cool off in the rain. Well, that didn't last long. The wind and rain got so strong I wasn't sure if we were going to make it back into the shop. I was 100% sure the tornado sirens were about to go off and we were in for a hell of a ride.

This was the first storm where I got spooked and didn't take pics and I've been through several tornados. Wicked, wicked storm!

At least it's cooled way down. The heat and humidity has been kickin' my butt!

Wow - thanks for sharing your story. That was really intense! Glad you guys made it. It's a shame to see those beautiful old trees snapped apart like that. Looks like a lovely neighborhood.

Below is a picture from the storm yesterday showing the Chicago skyline... eerie!


(this shot came from the linked article, I didn't take it)


Good luck with clean-up efforts. I hope everyone continues to be safe, downed trees and powerlines can be dangerous even after the storm has passed.

Amazing! You hear stories where people are killed in freak accidents that shouldn't kill a person, then you hear stories like yours where a person should have died but didn't - makes you think that when it's your time, it's your time - and when it's not your time, it just ain't gonna happen.

I'm not far from you , I'd heard of the damage sustained in Elgin.
Glad you two are ok and thanks for posting your pics .
That's only the second time I've ever heard of a microburst !

We didn't get much in Wondertucky , just some great thunder!

Me and my family got caught out in a powerful storm like this a couple years ago. It was crazy. Cars were over-turned and huge trees down everywhere. It was a bizarre-looking storm. I watched it come in. The clouds were black as soot. I've never seen anything like that in my 43 years on earth and neither has anyone else who seen it. Someone in the neighborhood was grilling out at the time and he said his grill flew away and he was left standing there with a spatula in his hand. He said it was a powerful downburst that happened so fast that he barely had time to react.He ran inside for his life.

Glad you guys are okay. Thanks for sharing

Takes the statement," I could die for a Smoke" to another level.

Same thing happened to me in a suburban neighborhood in Fairport NY about 10 years ago now. I looked out the kitchen window to see a trampoline flying through the air and it took out a massive oak tree in our backyard, completely uprooted it. The damage was centered on only a few square miles and the areas outside that were completely untouched; it was like a tornado but without the circling wind effect.

That was one of the last straws to a series of straws weather-wise that convinced me to move out of the NE; I'm now in southern Oregon in an area known for its low average wind speeds...

Is this the new normal and if so, what is the new abnormal going to look like? Because you can only have so many weather events in a given area, in a given span of time, before 'normal' housing and life won't work anymore, and the insurance costs will be unsustainable. How many disasters before world governments can't keep up with a monthly Katrina event or it's equivalent?

In other questions, when are the 'codes' going to allow housing like cob and dome framed houses that withstand these kind of events better than those idiotic stick-built houses?

a reply to: Aqualung2012

I experienced something like this when I was a kid and I'll never forget it.

I'm not a stranger to extreme weather but the speed in which this system formed was frightening. One minute a friend and I were playing in my backyard, then less than ten minutes later we were sprinting inside as lightning began striking around us, it was so close that the thunder immediately followed an sounded just like a whip cracking. Then the gales followed and started knocking trees down.

After 30 minutes it was over and the sun started to break through the clouds. Words cannot do justice to how quickly this cell formed, it's was like if someone had flicked a switch and turned the storm on.

Mother Nature is no joke! ....never take her for granted, and people don't pay attention to the weather as much as they should ....or nature.....the art of reading nature is becoming a lost trait. My grandparents taught me to pay attention to the animals and nature. Birds especially can give signs of impending doom. ....OP, the insects you saw acting weird was a Sign of danger,and that nature is about to let lose.

originally posted by: kaylaluv
Amazing! You hear stories where people are killed in freak accidents that shouldn't kill a person, then you hear stories like yours where a person could have died but didn't - makes you think that when it's your time, it's your time - and when it's not your time, it just ain't gonna happen.

FTFY.

I spent a night outdoors in a hurricane trying to keep yachts from sinking.

Watched the roof of a large building take off like a giant bird.

Hate to think I "should" have died.

I want to stop and say thank you all for your input and kind words. You're all absolutely right, and I'll reply to each of you in a short while, but I have some things to attend to this morning.

crazy story my man. Glad you are ok.
I must also commend you on your writing. Very well-worded, structured and grammatically correct

Damn ! Glad to hear you are okay.
Can't have an Opeth fan plus someone with the O inked on them like me getting hurt!
I haven't experienced anything like that and after looking at the pics and reading what you said I hope i dont.

Wow! That really sucks. Glad you are ok. I am in Gurnee and I did not even notice this going on. I just heard rain outside and did not think anything of it. My better half works in Northbrook were the article says trees fell too. She did not notice anything, besides rain, either. We must be two oblivious people.

I've been in a derecho on a large open field once. The worst part of it was that there was so much dust getting into my eyes that I just couldn't see! But that doesn't much your experience! In my opinion you were lucky to have experienced it x)

originally posted by: TrueBrit
a reply to: Aqualung2012

You are a lucky pair of buggers!

I do not mean that you are lucky to be alive, although by the sounds of it, the hand of fate was upon your shoulders in your survival of this incident. You are however, lucky to have experienced something like that, been there in that moment. I am sure that you cannot deny, despite the terror it caused you at the time, that a part of you has never felt more alive than in those moments when lightning was scouring all around you, when the howling breath of the wind was at your back, when trees and debris were being thrown all about like so many bits of matchwood.

I wish I had been there!

You have hit the nail on the head... It was absolutely thrilling! The feeling -no, the realization- that my life was actually in danger really took hold once I lost sight of my friend. I thought he got crushed by the tree... and he thought the same about me. I heard him shout "NO!" as it came crashing down between us.

Indeed, I never felt more alive in my life, nor had I ever felt the type of (what I'll call "love") for anyone before. It was the kind of "love" a soldier must have for his brothers in arms. My heart sank when I lost sight of my friend, Rick. I didn't want to turn the corner without him, despite my fear and the winds literally pushing me forward. All I could do was scream "COME ON! COME ON RICK!!!" When I finally saw him again, I was so relieved.

Looking back, its not so much the brush with death that shakes me. It is the sheer magnitude and violence of the storm. I saw it coming on the NWS radar mosaic, and I told Rick, "Its gonna be short but DAMN strong." It sure was...

But yes, I'm thinking of changing my legal name to "Lucky."

originally posted by: intrptr
Near death experiences are the best.

Running down the middle of the street to 'make it home' might not have been your best option.


"Its not that the wind is blowin'…

Its what the wind is blowin'.

If you get hit by a Volvo…" --Ron Satterwhite

Too true. I even said to my friend that we should wait... but it was impossible to gauge how fast it would reach us. We did only have 7 blocks to go... but the timing was perfectly terrible, and terribly perfect as it were.

And yeah, a Volvo, a couch, a tree... Anything that weighs more than you and is moving faster than you, well that's death incarnate.

originally posted by: Lolliek
Glad you guys made it safely home! I think someone/something was definitely looking out for you both. I bet you've never run that fast in your life.

Crazy...

Thank you very much. I agree with you on "someone/something," looking out. As a Christian friend said after the storm: "You're OK, you're alive... God has a purpose for you."

And you're damn right I never ran faster in my life! My legs are shot today... Rick and I were joking about it, saying, "You know, Rick, if you had smoked a few less cigarettes, you'd have gotten nailed. Same goes if I had smoked any more cigs.

The odds are staggering.