For the record, we’re fine, and so are the family in Iowa. They had some power loss but that’s been resolved.
I was in Omaha when this all started and left to head home at 3 pm. By that point, Mary, in Lincoln, had gone through three rounds of tornado sirens. The trip home was to take me about 65 minutes, heading southwest on I-80. Just a few minutes later, this happened along I-80:
The video is from the POV of someone heading northeast near Waverly, NE, just outside of Lincoln.
At 3:17, I was coming up to the outlet mall in Ashland, NE, and snapped this pic. They’re not the greatest tornado photos ever, but it’s the only ones I’ve ever taken and the closest I ever want to be to one.
About 40 minutes later, I passed that location heading in the other direction and saw the semi in question, followed by several miles of three-lane backed-up traffic.
In the end, it looks like this tornado made the top 20 ever recorded.
Michael Sauers is the Director of Logan Library in Logan, UT. Prior to this he was one of the founding staff and Technology Manager for Do Space in Omaha, NE. After earning his MLS in 1995 from the University at Albany's School of Information Science and Policy Michael spent his first 20 years as a librarian training other librarians in technology along with time as a public library trustee, a bookstore manager for a library friends group, a reference librarian, a technology consultant, and a bookseller. He has written dozens of articles for various journals and magazines and has published 14 books ranging from library technology, blogging, Web design, and an index to a popular horror magazine. In his spare time, he blogs at TravelinLibrarian.info, runs The Collector's Guide to Dean Koontz website at CollectingKoontz.com, takes many, many photos, and typically reads more than 100 books a year.
Unless otherwise stated, all opinions are my own and are not to be considered those of the City of Logan, UT.
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