Night of The Twisters

  The following is a story based off a true event that happened to me at boy scout summer camp when I was 13.






    It had been a long day at Boy Scout summer camp as me and a couple of my friends walked down the dusty dirt road to our campsite. We had been there almost a week and were joined by several other troops that brought the total of people up to about 200. The camp was a peaceful place. It was nestled in the woods near a large bay that made fog roll in every morning, coating us and our gear, with a moist, sticky layer of water. Our accommodations were fairly large, two man WW2 tents that were a dark green and sat on wooden platforms. Each campground consisted of about 20-30 tenets. The campground I was staying at was near the shower house, which was right next to a ravine that was about 30-40ft deep. On the other side of the ravine was the lodge, where we held meetings. It was actually just an oversized log cabin. 

    As me and my friends walked, we heard the distant crackle of thunder, which was not uncommon because we got a thunderstorm almost every night. I could tell something was off about this storm. The thunder was constant, one boom right after another, and warm air blew from the direction of the storm... The rest had always blown cold air. The storms always came from the northeast and usually only had a little rain and a few bolts of lighting, but as we got to our campsite, we saw this was no ordinary storm. Over the tops of the trees a massive, dark grey, and well formed thunderstorm loomed over us, like a giant monster ready to crush us. The storm was huge and we stopped, just staring at it for a few minutes before hearing the rough voice of our scout master, calling us. We all ran over to the small pavilion where he stood, looking at his phone. He was a middle aged man with grey hair and scruff on his chin that he rubbed with concern as he looked up from his phone.

 
"Listen up. That storm", he said pointing to the massive thunderstorm. "is heading our way. It's not like the storms we've been getting. If you have anything that you want to keep, go tie it down now and then get in your tents and stay there."


   We all nodded and ran to our tents. I shared a tent with black kid named Terry, whom I had know for a few years and was really good friends with.  We both packed our stuff into our gear boxes, which were water proof, and then sat on our cots. We talked for a while before it started to get dark, mainly from the sun going down, but also because of the massive storm. The thunder got louder and the wind began to pick up as the storm drew closer. Terry and I were both starting to get nervous as the lighting began to hit closer and a light rain began to fall. Suddenly there was a bolt of lightning that struck about 15 yards rom our tent. I almost shit myself as the crack of thunder left a ringing in my ears that lasted for a good thirty seconds. After that the rain started to get heavier and that's when the wind really picked up. Terry and I heard several other boys scream as their ten was pulled out of the ground and blown across the campsite. We watched as the boys ran into another tent for shelter as heavier rain began to fall. The rain was so heavy that we couldn’t see out of our tent, it just looked a wall of blackness outside. The rain was soon mixed with dime sized hail that bounced into our tents. After a few minutes of this chaos our scout master came to our tent and pulled us outside.

 
"Come on! To the lodge! Run!", he yelled and moved on to the next tent.

    Terry and I, along with many others, ran through the blackness, which would turn to pure white with every flash of lighting. The only way we knew where we were going was we looked at the ground and followed the gavel path. The lighting flashed and the thunder cracked all around us as we got pelted with hail and wind that was about 50-60mph.  Suddenly, I felt my feet slip out from under me and I found myself sliding down the 40ft, muddy slope that led down the ravine. The rain let up a little as I regained my footing and got back on the path. We were almost to the bottom when more boy scouts came running down the opposite side of the ravine.

 
"Get down! Tornado!", they yelled as they ran down.

 
    I hesitated a second before jumping into the swift moving, 3ft deep stream that ran through the bottom of the ravine. I got under the small bridge that crossed the stream and braced myself against the bottom as the wind picked up. I heard the ominous roar of the twister as it skirted the top of the ravine. I closed my eye's as trees above us snapped and large branches flew through the air. I could hear everyone screaming as the winds roared around us and the tops of trees were tossed through the air like twigs. This all lasted for only about 10 seconds, but it felt like an eternity. Once the twister had moved on, we all rushed to the lodge and stayed there for the rest of the night, in our soaking clothes. Some of us were hurt, a few kids had broken bones, I myself had a few scratches and bruises.

    The next morning we all went outside to find almost all the trees where the tornado had been were missing tops, or had fallen over. A few cars were damaged and The lodge was just barely missed.  After we went home, we found out that not one, but two tornadoes were there that night. They were rated EF1-EF2. They were twin waterspouts that had come off the bay and onto land, becoming tornadoes. No one died, but everyone was a little shaken up after that.