The Weatherman Read Online Free PDF Page B

mouthpiece. A thousand stones pinged off the Plexiglas. He saw Kitt’s head snap back. The vibrations were worsening. “We’re taking hits here! I’m coming around! I’m coming around!” He retreated in a clockwise circle, gained control, and approached again.
    “I was driving to the mall when I heard the helicopter pilot on the radio talking about a tornado coming… I guess I should have turned around and gone home, but I drove to the mall instead. As soon as I got in the door I heard the Dayton’s people announce a tornado was coming, and a man was yelling, ‘Get in back! Get away from those windows.” Then the lights went out… and I looked out into the parking lot and saw cars spinning around, so I took cover behind a big couch … Then this train went overhead… and I heard this woman screaming for help … but I couldn ‘t find her … It was pretty scary for a while there.”
    Bob Buckridge lined the tornado up with the visible horizon to the northeast and rattled off the communities he knew so well. “If you live in a line along Roseville, Vadnais Heights, White Bear Lake, Mahtomedi, Stillwater, or St. Croix County, Wisconsin, you should take shelter immediately. The tornado is on the ground and coming your way.”
    The tornado carved its deepest path through the St. Paul suburb of Roseville, flattening every house in its way. Yards for miles around were littered with neighbors’ homes. Church bell towers were silenced. By now the tornado had been on the ground for more than ten minutes, but with Dixon Bell’s early warning, and Bob Buckridge’s blow by blow descriptions going out over every radio and TV station in town, half of the metropolitan area was either underground or seeking shelter.
    In once romantic While Bear Lake, immortalized in the short stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald, the great tornado wrote a new chapter on urban sprawl, flattening one tacky development after another. As it steam-rollered by, no house, no boal could resisl for even a fraction of a second the tragic ending.
    “It was just like a jet coming over the top of our house. Then our house was gone.”
    Skyhawk 7 followed The tornado over the woods east of the Twin Cities. Uprooted trees were left sticking in the air. Trees left standing had the bark stripped from their trunks. It twisted across the scenic St. Croix River and into Wisconsin. Then, having spent its fury in a thirty-five-mile path through the heart of the metropolitan area, the Eden Prairie tornado disappeared into the cloud from which it had emerged a half-hour earlier.
    Bob Buckridge watched the funnel slip back into the heavens. In the end there was a blinding, unnatural light with a blue tinge to it that lit up the black cloud like a fluorescent bulb. Then it was gone. He threw the broadcasl back to the studio. His once smooth-running ship was bucking. His knuckles wrapped around the control stick were deathly white, scraped and bleeding. He checked his instruments. His eye caught the monitor: a close-up of Andrea. God, she’s beautiful, he thought. Then, like a cruel joke, they quick-cul to Dixon Bell. The pilot chuckled. “From heaven to hell.” He circled around and brought Skyhawk 7 face to face with the back edge of the storm that had given the tornado birth. Home now lay to the west, two rivers and a mountain of violent wealher away. The dark sky was tinged with red. Rainfall was heavy. Hail raked his ship like groundfire. Lightning bolts cracked around him. Below him was the St. Croix Valley, its rolling hills studded with Irees and mined with lakes and streams.
    Strong north winds whipped rain through the cockpit. Kitt was loading a new tape into his camera, seemingly unperturbed by events. His hair was dripping wet. His face was red. Blood trickled from his forehead. His hands were full, so he just smiled up at his pilot friend and nodded. I follow you anywhere.
    Buckridge knew his ship was hurting. The vibrations would not smooth out. Perhaps