The Weatherman Read Online Free PDF

miles, across Lakewood Cemetery, where Minnesota’s famous were buried, and through the heart of trendy Uptown. It rearranged headstones, ripped off the roofs of houses, uprooted trees, and downed power lines. Cars were all but split in two as heavy branches crashed down on them. Some drivers made it out. Others did not. A tree limb pierced a house wall like a thrown spear.
    “Just a big cloud swirling … this really big cloud swirling all over … It sounded like a locomotive, exactly like they say it does, except for that screaming woman. There was this big piece of sheet metal… and it just flew right over me and into the tree, and I saw the tree go right into the house like a missile … It was just unbelievable … I couldn ‘t believe I was alive.”
    The tornado skirted the east shore of Lake of the Isles, where stately homes stood. Then it skipped across Loring Park on the edge of downtown. A man-on-the-street theory says tornadoes do not strike at cities. That theory is all hot air and wind. Tornadoes are not impressed by tall buildings.
    Bob Buckridge noted his air speed: forty-six knots. The huge twisting cloud sometimes caused the ground to disappear. He checked his altimeter. They had climbed to eight hundred feet. With a quick glance at the monitor he made sure Kitt’s pictures were being fed back to the station. Playing chicken with the twister, he could just barely hear the debris attacking his ship. He feared Kitt, hanging out the door by a seat belt, would be hit. And there were jolts. But he never stopped talking. “Anybody in a downtown building should take shelter immediately-that includes Sky High News. The tornado is on the ground, headed your way.”
    In a mass show of bravado, or of stupidity, all newsroom personnel held their positions.
    Dave Cadieux, the photographer Gayle the Ghoul had sent to the roof, wrapped one arm around a steel pole, leveled his twenty-thousand-dollar camera on the tripod, and centered the twister in the special four-thousand-dollar lens. He was hanging on for dear life when through that lens he saw Skyhawk 7 swing out from behind the funnel. He almost burst with pride in his attempt not to burst in the wind. If they lived, it would be promo material for years to come.
    The tornado tore across the roof of the Sky High parking ramp, lifting a red Honda Prelude and slamming it into a huge green transformer. The explosion was blinding, knocking out the television equipment below the ramp. The murder scene was completely blown away, any last bit of evidence sucked up and destroyed. Pressure shattered the southwest window in the newsroom, every shard of glass sucked outward.
    After deflating the roof of the Metrodome, the supposedly weatherproof home of the Twins and the Vikings, the twister jumped the Mississippi River, faked back into the clouds, then pounced on St. Paul. It tore through the drive-through of a Burger King restaurant. Destruction was instantaneous. At an Amoco station it tore the gas pumps from their moorings and sent them whirling through the car wash. It cut across the northeast corner of the capital city, dipping into quiet weekday neighborhoods sucking up trees and homes and lives. Some victims were carried by the wind two hundred yards, their bodies horribly bruised and cut. From there the twister tripped across Highway 36 and set its sights on one of the largest shopping malls in Minnesota. Skyhawk 7 stayed with it all the way.
    “The tornado is now on the ground in Roseville. If you are in the Rosedale Mall, go to the basement of Dayton’s department store. If you are watching this at the Rosedale Mall, get everybody to the basement immediately. You are in the direct path of the tornado. You have only seconds.”
    A minute later, in one of the most sacrilegious acts in the history of Minnesota, this cyclone from hell audaciously attacked a Dayton’s department store.
    “It just tore the roof off Dayton’s!” Buckridge barked into his