The Ninth Anniversary of the La Plata Tornado (April 28, 2002)

Nine years ago today, my son Ian and I were fishing at Myrtle Grove Wildlife Management Area (WMA) having a great  time.  We weren't catching diddly (maybe small Bluegill or Sun Perch).  My ex-wife drove up just to hang out with us. I walked over to where she was smoking a cigarette and we were watching our son who was fishing away in bliss.

The sky started to darken and clouds came rolling in - it looked like one heck of a thunderstorm brewing up.  My ex exclaimed, "look at all the fish jumping out in the lake!" I looked and saw that those weren't fish, those were lemon-sized hailstones

hitting the water. I yelled to my ex to move her car under the trees and yelled for Ian who chucked his pole and dove into the car hiding under the dash (I didn't know you could scrunch up that small).  We drove into the bushes under big oaks and poplars to try to avoid the hail.  The storm blew by in less than 90 seconds.

Afterwards we backed our cars out into the parking lot and played with hailstones, having a great time.  My ex decided she needed to go so she left.  About two minutes later she called on her cell phone and told me that La Plata was pretty much gone - a tornado had taken out the town and the streets were covered with debris - she was going to have to go around the town.  Turns out the tornado had missed us by about a quarter of a mile, we never even knew it was there.

God is good all the time!

I am putting a couple of links in, if you are interested.  The La Plata Tornado Link 1  The La Plata Tornado Link 2