Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Pond Boss Dodged a bullet last night

I'm not one to be "afraid" of tornadoes but last night had me worried. A friend that lives about 300 miles away texted me and said "Have you seen the weather? Kankakee, Illinois just got smacked by a tornado and it's headed your way. Watch your butt.". Now Kankakee is about 90 miles and 1.5 hours away so I finished what I was doing in the pole barn and headed inside. We were on the border of zone 3 and 4 of severe weather yesterday but it was cloudy all day so the energy didn't build like it could have. This was around 8pm. In the next 30 minutes I had probably 10 different friends and customers text me saying that I needed to watch my butt.

I looked at my local weather guy that I trust and he said there was s supercell moving NE from there that DID have a tornado in it. I kept watching as it got closer and closer. As it got closer and closer I got a wee bit more concerned and started putting things away for safekeeping that should have been put away. The house has a 9' deep basement, but when they said it was 10 minutes away I chickened out, threw the dog in the truck and hit the highway, driving away from it. My thoughts were that I could replace material things, but if I got hurt, that would not be a good thing.

It previously was staying on a pretty straight SW to NE track, so I knew if I drove SE I'd be OK. I heard was that the tornado hit Knox, then Hamlet, then the rotation was showing at Koontz Lake, which is NNE of Grovertown, instead of heading further E like it was going towards this house when I hit the road. Grovertown is directly between Hamlet and Koontz Lake.

Unfortunately, Grovertown is where the other house is and where the office/business is. I texted the neighbor but got no reply. I stopped in Bourbon, about 20-25 miles SSE of the house, topped off the fuel tank in the truck and looked at the radar. Radar showed the storm past me, so I headed home. The neighbor texted me and said that as they were heading to the basement the tornado lifted and they had no damage. I drove past the other house in 1/2 hr and he was correct, I didn't see any branches down on the road. WHEW.

Today the weather guy I trust said 2 were killed in Lake City, just over the border into Indiana and he also said that the tornado was 1/2 mile wide when it was in Starke County, where the office is. Tomorrow I have to visit a customer in Knox, he said they were missed, but it looks like it was about 4 miles North of them. I will do some driving around on the way there to see where the damage stopped and it actually lifted up.

I think I dodged a big bullet; if it would have hit the office, the fish hauling trailer, tanks, holding tanks, and house/barn would have been flat out gone.