MAY 3, 1999 with Mike Cohen
Oklahoma City, OK We targeted the Vernon, TX / Altus, OK area with the dryline near Childress, the nose of a stronger than forecast jet max moving out of New Mexico towards NWTX/SWOK and better insolation to the south. As we drove through Wichita Falls we could see CB's to our north near Lawton but they were having great difficulty standing up straight and we still felt our original target was on track with the dryline between Childress and Altus so we continued on up hwy 287 toward Vernon. A new storm began to explode to our NW and quickly moved north of the Red River and toward Altus. We headed north to Altus and east on hwy 62. As we got even with the storm to our north we heard a loud bang and quickly realized our left front tire had blown out. My chase partner Mike Cohen was driving and did a great job of maintaining control and working us onto the grass in the median. Now the storm was beginning to look very tornadic to our north. We quickly put on the emergency spare and drove on toward Lawton hoping to find a tire at 6:30pm. Luckily just as we entered town I noticed the words "Tire Center" on the left side of the road and a quick look showed that they were open. (whew!) We pulled in and got great service and were back on the road with a new tire in about 30 min. Unfortunately this would cost us the daylight tornado's. All this time we we're aware of both the Chickasha and Anadarko storms via ham radio. We felt some disappointment but mainly felt fortunate that we hadn't caught the storm before our mishap. We saw lot's of damage along I44 southwest of OKC. We worked our way to the Piedmont area as that very large ghostly Tornado wandered off into the darkness illuminated only by lightning and power flashes. One power flash lit the tornado like a lamp shade. As we drove east our path was blocked by downed tree's so we went NW on hwy 3 to N to Kingfisher where the power was still out. The tornadic storm to our north showed an awesome display of lightning as we drove on. Before we knew it we were driving through downtown Dover which had just been hit by an F4 tornado. The whole town was a mess with various building materials in the road. The Police had the road blocked on the north side of town due to power lines across the road. As I looked in the field to my right I noticed a car that had been pancaked and twisted laying in the field. It was an eerie site as we made our way back through town. All you could make out in the darkness was stripped trees where houses once stood. We drove back south to Kingfisher and went east and saw 2 more shadowy elephant trunks moving off to our east. It seemed that every storm was a cyclic supercell. Our worst fears were realized as we drove back south and heard about the tragedy in OKC. Our hearts were saddened as we made our way back to Fort Worth that night.