The Black Wind - All Systems Down

Chase the storm until it chases you. Tornadoes! They don’t look like they do in the movies. When you’re in the path of one, all you’ll see is a wall of black wind. This week, Snap is heading directly into the monster’s maw to chase storms that should be left alone. Big thanks to Craig Wolter! Thank you, Windom High School… especially Sarah, Benny, and Danielle. Crystal Frank, another student on the trip, shared her home video with us. This story would not have been possible without her. Many thanks also to Sue, for sharing your story with us. Sue’s memoir is titledThe Lake Turned Upside Down. https://www.amazon.com/s?k=the+lake+turned+upside+down&hvadid=777807450637&hvdev=c&hvexpln=67&hvlocphy=9031107&hvnetw=g&hvocijid=7666977443573017881--&hvqmt=e&hvrand=7666977443573017881&hvtargid=kwd-1074933357786&hydadcr=22160_13655696&mcid=9291dfb388e830e9a2d286bccadb489b&tag=googhydr-20&ref=pd_sl_3bg5nnol4b_e_p67 Produced by John Fecile, original score by Renzo Gorrio, artwork by Teo Ducot. If you listened to our radio broadcast and want to find out what happened to the 24 people that shut themselves in a beer cooler to wait out one of the strongest tornadoes in recorded history, you can listen to the full length version of the “Eye of the Storm” story here. https://snapjudgment.org/story/eye-of-the-storm-snap-615-caught-up/ Season 17 – Episode 35 Join Snap+ https://snap.supercast.com/if you aren't already a member! Get bonus eps, an ad-free stream and more. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices https://dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

• 0:07Speaker 00

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• 1:13Speaker 01

  The Oricara, a plains people. They call it the Black Wind. To the Rappahoe, they're the work of the whirlwind woman. Tornadoes have always held a special place in the American imagination because more than happen here than anywhere else. 75% of all tornadoes occur in the continental United States. 1,200 a year. Dozens of people perish every tornado season. But some folk, when they catch sight of nature's vortex, they don't run away. They run toward.

• 1:58Speaker 01

  Rural Michigan. As a kid in school, the film they make us watch with the pretty lady in the yellow dress, it instructs us that if you see a tornado, go immediately to the basement or to the middle of a sturdy building or to a ditch. But no one in our trailer park has a basement, a sturdy building, or a ditch. I look up from our front yard and off in the far distance, the sky trembles. Slate gray cloud boils, snakes a long tendril to the ground,

• 2:42Speaker 01

  then instantly turns black. I hear thunder, cracking, mothers, fathers shouting. As if it senses our panic, this new monster pulses, rise, and advances. Me, silent, screaming, not moving, frozen. Watching, watching, watching. Before it shifts, turning, laughing, deciding to maybe destroy someone else's lives instead.

• 3:24Speaker 01

  It's too far away to hear their shouting. But I hear them anyway. And the folk in town with houses, with basements, with safe rooms, some of them make fun of us for living out here in trailers. And right then, I cannot help but wonder, why monsters drop from the sky to attack us instead of them?

• 4:02Speaker 01

  Today on Snap Judgment, instead of running away, we're going directly to the heart of the beast. A Snap Judgment blockbuster special, The Black Wind. But in Washington, no. Godzilla doesn't only destroy Tokyo when you're listening to Snap Judgment.

• 4:34Speaker 01

  We begin in tornado country, up close and personal, and our story. In fact, both of the stories you're about to hear today come from Snap Judgment's unofficial weatherman, John Fasil. Snap Judgment.

• 5:03Speaker 02

  So did you know that you're the cool teacher?

• 5:06Speaker 03

  No, I'm the cool teacher. Oh, really?

• 5:10Speaker 02

  Meet Craig Walter, the cool teacher. Famous at Wyndham High School for his jokes, for how worked up he got during the lectures in his earth sciences class, for letting his students freeze bottles of Mountain Dew in his mini fridge so they can make slushies. But on this one field trip in 1999, Craig became legendary.

• 5:32Speaker 02

  That year, Craig took his meteorology class on a field trip from their small town in southern Minnesota to the National Weather Center in Norman, Oklahoma.

• 5:41Speaker 03

  It's like, hey, not many high schools have a meteorology class, so why not bring them to where the experts are? In the back of my mind, I'm like, oh, it'd be great if we saw some tornadoes. It'd be great if I ran into some of these famous tornado researchers.

• 5:56Speaker 02

  Craig was obsessed with tornadoes. He'd gone chasing on his own once or twice, and his principal knew how passionate he was. So before he let Craig take 12 teenagers into the middle of tornado alley at the beginning of tornado season, he made Craig promise.

• 6:17Speaker 03

  My principal said, you know, you're not going to be storm chasing. You know, you can't be storm chasing because you're going to put kids in danger. You know, I don't remember the exact words, but basically, I would be fired if I took kids storm chasing. And I remember distinctly saying to them, you know, here's the deal. I don't know if you've ever been to Oklahoma, but it's really flat. And if there's a tornado, we might be able to see from our hotel. In my own mind, it wasn't a solid no. I'm not going to go storm chasing.

• 6:46Speaker 03

  Because if there was--

• 6:47Speaker 02

  That sounds like a pretty solid no.

• 6:49Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 6:53Speaker 02

  Two big white vans, full of chattering high school students, set off across the prairie on a 12-hour road trip.

• 7:01Speaker 04

  I had never been further south than Spirit Lake, so it was all new stuff, seeing the terrain, like heading down there. And all of a sudden, when you see red dirt for the first time and that's all you see in Oklahoma--

• 7:15Speaker 02

  Benny Collins, Jr. was a real weather junkie.

• 7:18Speaker 04

  I still have a journal where I would watch all the local meteorologists on TV and write down what they were forecasting.

• 7:26Speaker 02

  At 17, he was quiet and shy. In fact, voted quietest and shyest in his high school yearbook.

• 7:33Speaker 05

  You are a quiet and reserved guy, but it all changes when you start talking about meteorology.

• 7:39Speaker 04

  Oh, God. Thanks.

• 7:42Speaker 05

  Off the record, how do I silence my watch?

• 7:45Speaker 04

  Throw it.

• 7:47Speaker 02

  Two of Benny's best friends, Danielle McEwen-- We knew Benny was going to be in the class and we thought it would be fun. And Sarah Trotter--

• 7:55Speaker 06

  Two, like, we loved Mr. Walter--

• 7:57Speaker 02

  Were also on the field trip.

• 7:58Speaker 05

  Honestly, for me, I think it was a chance to miss like three days of school. It wasn't like I was super excited to learn more about weather.

• 8:07Speaker 06

  Growing up in a small town, I mean, we didn't really get out very much. Like, my dad came along as a chaperone, so it was just really exciting.

• 8:16Speaker 02

  The students wake up early on May 3, 1999, at the roadside motel where they spent the night.

• 8:23Speaker 03

  I refer to it as the luxurious Super 8 motel in Norman, Oklahoma. So we get up and, you know, looking at the weather channel, never forget, it was a 20% chance of thunderstorms that day. So it's like, oh, you know, there's going to be no weather. Oh, well.

• 8:39Speaker 02

  Craig and the chaperone, Sarah's dad, herd the students into their two vans and drive to the National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center.

• 8:50Speaker 02

  The SPC is in a bland government building. If it wasn't for the framed pictures of tornadoes on the walls, you'd have no idea what these people did, or that they were the best in the world at doing it. So you felt like you were in Hollywood?

• 9:03Speaker 04

  Yeah, exactly. It was, this is where the magic happens.

• 9:07Speaker 05

  It felt like they maybe didn't give a lot of kids tours because I feel like they were pretty excited to be talking to us when we first got there.

• 9:17Speaker 03

  So we knew that something was up because there was an energy. It's just like, there's something really weird going on. And so we go into this room and it's packed with meteorologists.

• 9:32Speaker 02

  One of the forecasters on duty has called a special meeting. It seems like things are really cooking in the atmosphere. Warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico is pushing up against cold air from the north.

• 9:46Speaker 04

  And at that point, he saw that the winds were a lot stronger aloft, which mean there's going to be more wind shear later in the day to interact with the boundary.

• 9:54Speaker 03

  I said, yeah, can you put some of that stuff, what they just said? Could you please tell us in layman's terms, like, high school meteorology version?

• 10:01Speaker 02

  Thunderstorms are coming, and not just thunderstorms.

• 10:04Speaker 03

  And he stated, he's like, "You will be able to throw a rock from one tornado to another in Oklahoma." Oh my gosh, this is crazy. In the back of my mind, I'm looking at the maps and everything and I'm like, "Well, if it's that close, if we happen to be sitting in the parking lot of the luxurious Super 8 hotel, there's a good chance we're probably going to see a tornado." And hey, we were at our hotel. There was nothing else we could do.

• 10:32Speaker 02

  You're already like making excuses in your...

• 10:34Speaker 03

  I was, but then, of course, hearing the voice of my principal saying, "You will not go storm chasing," yes, sir.

• 10:43Speaker 02

  Craig's class moves on to their next stop, the parking lot of the University of Oklahoma for a meeting with the world-renowned Doppler on Wheels.

• 10:54Speaker 03

  The Doppler on Wheels truck, which was the radar truck of radar trucks.

• 10:58Speaker 06

  These trucks looked like they were big, white trucks with like satellite dishes on them, I guess, is what I would say.

• 11:05Speaker 02

  Two big, flatbed trucks with radar mounted on the back. And from out behind one of them comes scientist Herb Stein, ready to give the students a tour.

• 11:17Speaker 03

  I asked him, I said, "Herb, are you guys going out today?" And he replied, "No, there was no reason to go out because there was this minimal chance of thunderstorms." In my mind, I'm like, "Can I share what I just learned at the Storm Prediction Center?" I mean, if you're going to be able to throw a rock from one tornado to another, you would think that this truck would be getting gassed up right now. So I said, "Well, I heard that there was maybe a decent chance of maybe some thunderstorms." And he goes, "Hmm." And, you know, he's giving me a look like, "Okay, high school teacher, calm down."

• 11:56Speaker 02

  Herb Stein pulls one of the two cell phones off his belt and makes a call.

• 12:02Speaker 03

  All of a sudden, his whole demeanor just changed.

• 12:04Speaker 05

  He was like, "You know, guys, I'm really sorry. We're probably going to have to cut this a little short. I want to get out on the road." Our initial feeling was disappointment, like, "Oh, we're not going to get to see anything else," you know?

• 12:17Speaker 06

  Danielle and I were discussing it and we're like, "We should ask them if we can go with them." And I think we just blurted it out, "Can we go with you?" Definitely never thought they would say yes.

• 12:29Speaker 03

  And his reply was yes. He's like, "Well, yeah." He said, "You guys want to go along?" My mind was like a slot machine and all the numbers were spinning around and around. And it was like, "Okay, do I want a job? Do I want to keep employed? Do I not? Do I want to have the opportunity of a lifetime?" And I'm like, "Nah, we can't." "I want to. I want to. Don't get me wrong with it." I kind of promised the principal that that was not going to happen on this trip.

• 12:55Speaker 02

  Still, Craig knew that being with the Doppler trucks could actually be a good thing. They'd be tracking the storms the entire time, for one. They know exactly when a tornado is on the ground and where. And they keep a safe distance, a couple miles.

• 13:13Speaker 03

  Then my other driver, Paul, he came up behind me.

• 13:16Speaker 02

  Paul, Sarah's dad, the chaperone.

• 13:18Speaker 03

  You know, he's a parent. You know, "What's your thoughts of, you know, your kid is going on this trip?" And he said, "Quit being a [BLEEP]."

• 13:28Speaker 06

  The next thing I know, we were leaving. I mean, these guys were packing up and they were going, whether we were going with them or not.

• 13:43Speaker 06

  Mr. Walter always played Aerosmith. Deuces Are Wild, the whole Big Ones CD. He wouldn't let anyone listen to anything else.

• 13:52Speaker 02

  The two white vans, full of high school students, take off, Craig at the wheel, passing farm towns and endless fields baking in the heat. Up ahead, the two Doppler trucks. And in the distance, pillowy cumulus clouds soar upwards. The whole convoy drives parallel to the growing storm.

• 14:15Speaker 03

  I remember driving around in this one town and there was like a family reunion or there was some celebration thing going on in the city park. It's like, you know, "Do these people know what's going to possibly happen here, you know, within the next couple hours or so?" The sirens started going off and, you know, it's that eerie sound. Then it's kind of like, "Oof, here we go." Your instincts say, "I need to find shelter." And I'm driving students to this.

• 14:56Speaker 03

  Kind of second guess it. Again, your internal instincts say, "Hey, we need to find a basement."

• 15:02Speaker 02

  But he keeps going, following the Doppler trucks. An hour goes by, 90 minutes. Finally, outside of the town of Lawton, the Doppler trucks come to a sudden stop on the side of the road. Benny and the other students jump out of the vans.

• 15:18Speaker 04

  It was a hot and sunny day out in the prairie and I remember smelling the prairie grass and the Doppler on Wheels is off to the side. When they put the radar trucks down and started scanning, that's when it kind of set in for me that we're really doing it out here.

• 15:37Speaker 02

  One of the students is recording video as Craig and Paul wrangle everyone to the side of the road.

• 15:43Speaker 07

  Hey, watch out, guys. Get in the front. Get in front or something.

• 15:47Speaker 02

  The wind is picking up. Five or six miles away, a giant, rotating cloud is beginning to lower from the base of the storm, the mesocyclone.

• 15:57Speaker 07

  We're looking at a mesocyclone right there. The rotation's really tight.

• 16:01Speaker 06

  I remember Benny like yelling and I remember everyone that knew what they were seeing being really like, "Oh, my gosh, this is happening." Come on, come on, baby. Get down. I know you want to.

• 16:12Speaker 02

  Think of an upside-down layer cake. The first layer they see, the mesocyclone. Then a second layer drops down below that, a dark gray wall cloud. Then the final layer.

• 16:25Speaker 07

  The next step, touchdown, boys.

• 16:27Speaker 03

  And next you know, we have a tornado.

• 16:33Speaker 02

  Across the fields, a wispy, gray finger reaches down and touches earth.

• 16:41Speaker 03

  Your heart is beating so rapidly that, you know, you feel you just shattered your sternum or your breastbone.

• 16:47Speaker 02

  A small, ropey tornado, about as wide as a swimming pool, kicks up dirt.

• 16:53Speaker 06

  It doesn't look like how I feel like it looks. Like, I don't feel like, I feel like it's just more like, it just gets really black and it just kind of comes down.

• 17:01Speaker 05

  It's almost like it's distorted until it's not, right? It's just like, all of a sudden, it was like, bam, there it is.

• 17:09Speaker 08

  That's a tornado.

• 17:13Speaker 02

  The tornado is on the ground for less than a minute before it dissipates and winds back up into the clouds, just enough time for a picture.

• 17:21Speaker 05

  We took selfies with the tornado before selfies existed. We had pictures of all of us with the tornado in the background.

• 17:31Speaker 04

  Well, that's just a picture.

• 17:33Speaker 05

  I know, but do you know what I mean? It's like, look at, here's us and the tornado.

• 17:39Speaker 02

  Then the Doppler scientists invite the students into one of the trucks where they've gotten real-time scans of the tornado. They're able to see the precipitation, the wind speed, the tornado's internal structure.

• 17:53Speaker 05

  I don't think any of us thought that we'd see something like that. So we see this tornado. It's incredible. And we think, "Wow, we actually did it."

• 18:08Speaker 06

  Okay, great. Let's pack it up. This is what we did. This was amazing. So glad we came and we saw one.

• 18:13Speaker 03

  I've got enough explaining to do already. The only thing is, is that in order for us to get back to Norman, the road that was going to take us is being compromised by severe weather. There was no way we're going to drive through that.

• 18:28Speaker 02

  Craig hadn't thought this far ahead, but at this point, staying with the Doppler trucks is the safest bet. They pile back into their two vans and press play on Aerosmith as the Dopplers drive towards the next tornado and the next.

• 18:43Speaker 05

  Whoa, this escalated quickly, right? It legit was real-life Twister.

• 18:59Speaker 01

  When Snap returns, Craig and his students face down the big one. Stay tuned.

• 19:27Speaker 01

  Welcome back to Snap Judgment, the Black Wind episode. When last we left, high school science teacher Craig Walter and his class had hit the road with the world's top storm researchers. They found themselves in the middle of a giant tornado outbreak with no way out. Snap Judgment.

• 19:52Speaker 02

  The forecaster at the Storm Prediction Center was right. Oh, look at that debris. Multiple storms, multiple tornadoes.

• 20:02Speaker 06

  Like, it was just a kind of a constant rush of, "Take the pictures, that's great. Get back in the van, we're going again."

• 20:13Speaker 02

  Benny even remembers seeing a tornado that had two vortices, a double twister.

• 20:19Speaker 04

  One large wedge tornado with this smaller one going around it. I remember that one being darker, like, kind of like a bluish-black.

• 20:28Speaker 07

  That is a classic roll cloud. You can see, look at the gust front right ahead of us. See how those clouds are coming down and curving?

• 20:33Speaker 02

  Throughout all of this, Craig is still teaching. Remember, it's a field trip.

• 20:39Speaker 05

  As they were forming, I just remember all the terminology being shouted out left and right, and "look at this," and "look at that," and this is exactly what we were talking about.

• 20:48Speaker 07

  Look at that, look at the shelf cloud coming down. See how that bulge is outward there?

• 20:53Speaker 05

  I'm almost positive that he made us take notes.

• 20:56Speaker 07

  Oh, look at right there. Yeah. Look at right there.

• 20:58Speaker 04

  He has this little...

• 20:59Speaker 07

  Got it.

• 20:59Speaker 04

  Ho, ho, look at it, look at it.

• 21:01Speaker 07

  Oh, there it goes, there it goes, there it goes.

• 21:05Speaker 04

  Oh, look at, look at the wall cloud.

• 21:06Speaker 07

  Look at that wall cloud, the shelf cloud right in front.

• 21:11Speaker 03

  What better way of, you know, having a textbook meet reality than that experience?

• 21:18Speaker 02

  Craig is driving, trying not to crash.

• 21:21Speaker 03

  There's a tornado over there, tornado over there. And I was like, okay, I gotta stay focused and drive this van here.

• 21:26Speaker 02

  Every once in a while, he glances back nervously at his students' faces.

• 21:29Speaker 03

  I asked several times, you know, "How's everyone doing?" And, you know, of course, these are high school students. They can't show weakness around their friends, and if they were scared, they didn't tell me.

• 21:41Speaker 02

  None of the tornadoes do much damage, but they do grow bigger and stronger as the storm moves along. And then finally, tornado number nine touches down.

• 21:52Speaker 04

  We stopped at that overpass and got up on top and watched it from a distance, and it was just this gray mass.

• 22:02Speaker 02

  An enormous EF5 tornado, dark gray, nearly black, colored by all the debris it's sucking up. From their spot on the interstate miles away, all the students can hear is the rushing of wind.

• 22:16Speaker 05

  It was so big that you could almost not see either side of it. I mean, it was, it didn't even look like a tornado, really, but the Doppler guys and our teacher kept saying, you know, "No, that is, it's a confirmed tornado and it's gigantic."

• 22:35Speaker 02

  Up close, storm chasers record it tracking towards Oklahoma City, blowing up power transformers along the way.

• 22:42Speaker 07

  Oh my goodness, that thing is huge. Half mile to a mile wide at this time.

• 22:49Speaker 02

  The Doppler scientists invite the students back inside the cabin of one of their trucks. They've just documented something incredible.

• 22:57Speaker 03

  Someone said, "You've just now witnessed the fastest wind speed on the face of the earth."

• 23:03Speaker 02

  318 mile-per-hour winds whipping baseball-sized hail and gravel and lumber and cars, picking up freight trains and 18-wheelers, destroying homes and buildings in less than 30 seconds.

• 23:23Speaker 06

  It's just pretty unimaginable to be able to comprehend what that was.

• 23:28Speaker 05

  And I don't think it was even raining or storming whatsoever where we were, right?

• 23:36Speaker 04

  No, it was sunny and pristine.

• 23:43Speaker 02

  Craig and his students get back in the vans, but now it's starting to get dark. The Doppler trucks are far ahead, barely visible, driving into a curtain of rain and wind.

• 23:54Speaker 03

  The teacher in me, the adult in me, just said, "We've had enough. I need to make sure these kids are safe, so we need to get to, get to our hotel."

• 24:05Speaker 02

  Chasing the storm had actually led them back in the direction of the luxurious Super 8 motel.

• 24:12Speaker 03

  I just want to get to our hotel, I just want to get to our hotel, and hoping that it's still standing.

• 24:18Speaker 02

  On the road back, they start seeing debris, lumber, housing insulation, downed power lines.

• 24:24Speaker 04

  All of a sudden, the cement interstate turned into a mud road with tire tracks through it.

• 24:29Speaker 03

  Lots of sirens and emergency vehicles and this and that, and police, and it's just nonstop.

• 24:34Speaker 04

  There was a car that had been tossed, and it was like, the front end and the back end were all mashed up, and there was EMT all around it, and remember Walter's pulled over, because he was an EMT, and he wanted to go check it out and make sure everything was fine.

• 24:50Speaker 02

  The EMTs tell Craig that they've just recovered the body of a child that had been pulled from its mother's arms by the wind. He returns to the van.

• 25:00Speaker 03

  And it's kind of like this, you know, moment of silence, like, holy cow. And my students, again, you know, I'm worried about, you know, their, their mental state. You know, reality is really, is, you know, hitting me. If it's hitting me, it's got to be hitting them. And the reality is, people are dying now. I think it was an eye-opening for all of us.

• 25:23Speaker 04

  Was devastating. I just pray that people found shelter and were heeding warnings. There's not much else you can do than hope for the best.

• 25:34Speaker 05

  We just felt down, definitely much more somber. That was the first time I had felt, quote-unquote, homesick. It was like, okay, I'm, I'm ready to go home. I, I want to see my mom and dad and my house and, you know, just be home.

• 25:52Speaker 03

  I just remember, I just had this complete sinking feeling. When we got to the hotel, I couldn't even talk.

• 26:00Speaker 02

  The motel's roof is sprinkled with wood and leaves and trash, stuff thrown by the storm. The parking lot is full.

• 26:07Speaker 03

  Oof, lots of cars that were damaged.

• 26:12Speaker 02

  The students head for their rooms. Craig continues to unload the van, and as he's closing the door, a guy approaches. His car has bits of wood plastered all over it. He's holding his kid.

• 26:26Speaker 03

  And he, he asked if we had been chasing the storms. I told him, "I'm sorry, sir, I just don't feel comfortable answering these questions." And I felt guilty, you know? I was like, you know, one minute we're, you know, high-fiving because we saw these tornadoes, and now I'm talking to a guy that probably lost everything. He's just like, "Hey, it's okay." He said, "We live in Oklahoma." And he asked where we're from, and I said, "We're from Minnesota." And, and I remember he's like, "Yeah, you guys have to deal with mosquitoes. We deal with tornadoes. This is what we deal with. Hopefully you guys learned something to help us."

• 27:06Speaker 02

  Later that night, around 10:30, the students call their parents. Danielle is sure her mom will be asleep.

• 27:13Speaker 05

  And my mom picked up on the first ring, and I said, "Mom, I don't know if you knew this, but there was a huge tornadoic outbreak in Oklahoma." And she just starts screaming, "Yes, yes, I've seen it! We've been watching the news all night! Yes, of course, yes, we know! Are you okay? Are you okay?" And I'm like, "I'm fine." And she's like, "Oh, my gosh, you know, it's, it's all over the news, it's a huge deal." And, you know, us just being like, "Oh."

• 27:42Speaker 09

  Good evening, 76 tornadoes, five states in less than seven hours. More than 40 people have been killed, more than 600 people injured, more than 1,000 homes are ripped from their foundations.

• 27:54Speaker 02

  On their way home to Minnesota, Craig and the students drive past whole towns, where the buildings have been turned into piles of lumber and siding.

• 28:02Speaker 10

  Some Minnesota students are back home tonight after getting caught in those killer Oklahoma tornadoes. The Wyndham teenagers were on a field trip.

• 28:09Speaker 05

  Do you remember, like, half the town was at Mr. Walter's house when we got back? It was like a welcoming party for us.

• 28:20Speaker 02

  The vans pull up to Craig's house after the 12-hour drive.

• 28:24Speaker 04

  All the parents are there waiting for us.

• 28:27Speaker 05

  Hugged us a little harder than just a, a three-day normal trip, right?

• 28:32Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 28:41Speaker 01

  Now, Snapers, lest you question the educational value of this trip, know this: Of the 12 students on Craig Walter's 1999 field trip, two went into meteorology, including Benny. Another became the town of Wyndham's emergency manager. Craig was not fired. In fact, the trip and the press it generated made him look like the coolest high school science teacher ever. He kept going, year after year, until 2016, when he changed schools.

• 29:14Speaker 02

  Have you tried to do the trip again at your new school?

• 29:17Speaker 03

  Yes, oh, I tried. And, matter of fact, I had a conversation this morning with my superintendent, and yeah, there's no way.

• 29:30Speaker 01

  Up next, we'll finally take you inside a tornado it is not what you expect. Stay tuned.

• 29:50Speaker 01

  Welcome back to Snap Judgment, the Black Wind Special. My name is Glenn Washington, and our last story was about running toward tornadoes. Our next story is about a family running from one for decades. Snap Judgment.

• 30:08Speaker 02

  2012 was the year of the big Dugan family reunion in Minnesota, and Sue Dugan-Moline had volunteered to pick up her cousin Don from the airport. She hadn't seen him in years.

• 30:20Speaker 11

  And I thought, well, this is really awkward. What am I going to talk to Don about? You know, I don't know what he's been doing. He's divorced, haven't seen him forever, you know? Well, as we were driving, probably about a mile, mile and a half from my mom and dad's apartment, I just said, hey, Don, do you ever think about the tornado? That's all, I think that's all I said. Do you ever think about it? And it was like a fire hose let loose, and he started talking. And by the time we got to my mom and dad's apartment, he was bawling. He just got out of the car, he's just bawling. He said, we went home, and we never talked about it.

• 31:04Speaker 02

  In 1969, Sue's grandmother, cousin, and sister were all killed in a giant F-4 tornado while on vacation at a lake outside the town of Outing, Minnesota.

• 31:15Speaker 11

  You know, even with all these survivors being my family, we didn't really sit around and talk about it. We just referred to it, the tornado.

• 31:27Speaker 02

  Sue's mother had watched her sister drown that day.

• 31:30Speaker 11

  My mom would just tell her story, that little one-minute-watching-Becky-drown story.

• 31:36Speaker 02

  Sue's dad had been at the hardware store in town.

• 31:39Speaker 11

  My dad had a sense of guilt that he hadn't been there to save people, as if somehow you can do anything in over 200 mile-an-hour winds. You know, it's illogical.

• 31:53Speaker 02

  Sue only brought up the tornado directly with her parents one time.

• 31:57Speaker 11

  And I said to my dad, you know what I'd like to do is just interview everybody who was there, because I thought from a distance, we could talk about it now. And he just said, why would you want to do that? And it was the inflection in his voice. Why would you want to do that? He didn't even want to go there. And so I never did.

• 32:23Speaker 02

  But a couple of years after the reunion, Sue's parents both passed away, and she decided it was time.

• 32:31Speaker 11

  2018, 2019, I decided I am going to talk to everybody I knew who was still alive, who had survived it. And I always, I asked all of them the same 15 questions.

• 32:50Speaker 11

  What do you remember about the weather on August 6? What were you doing that day before it started? What do you remember thinking about while you were in the tornado? Did you experience any survivor's guilt?

• 33:11Speaker 02

  She'd record the interviews using a little handheld tape recorder that had belonged to her dad. One of the first people she spoke to was her cousin Shane, now in his 50s, and Shane's mom, Priscilla.

• 33:23Speaker 11

  Shane says, you know that question about survivor's guilt? He said, I had that. And his mom goes, oh, Shane, you know, what are you talking about? And he says, Mom, you told me to watch out for my sister that day. He was supposed to keep an eye on her, and she died. And he was seven. He had lived with that for 50 years and had never told his mom?

• 33:54Speaker 11

  I thought, if for no other reason, that was worth doing this, just because he could say that.

• 34:02Speaker 02

  When Sue connected with the families of other victims, she found out that it wasn't just hers that had stuffed this memory.

• 34:13Speaker 11

  Nancy, across the lake, whose grandpa and aunt died, she was nine. You know, she has very clear memories.

• 34:22Speaker 02

  Nancy had been flung by the tornado's winds, and when she came down, she landed on her aunt's dead body.

• 34:30Speaker 11

  And she in shock, you know, she had some bad cuts and stuff, but she got up and started helping other people. I mean, what you do when you're in shock, how you just react, it's kind of surprising.

• 34:45Speaker 11

  So it was therapeutic for her. Oh, she, if the weather's bad now, she texts me, Sue, I think a storm is coming. But she'd had nobody to talk to.

• 34:55Speaker 02

  Now she could talk to Sue, and Sue could talk to her because she'd been there.

• 35:04Speaker 11

  I would say I probably had about a two-minute memory of this event, August 6, 1969.

• 35:12Speaker 02

  Sue graduated from high school earlier that summer. It was six weeks before her 18th birthday.

• 35:20Speaker 11

  We'd been up there since Sunday afternoon, and it got a little cloudy. I had my swimsuit on, so I know that it was warm enough to go swimming. And middle of the afternoon, maybe, we started hearing, somebody used the word tornado. It probably had been on the radio. I was sitting in the cabin, about 30 feet from the lake, with my aunt Priscilla, who was very, very pregnant. And I assured her that we were in a safe place, because we were in a very low-lying area with steep hills on both sides of the lake.

• 36:05Speaker 11

  It would just jump right over us. The next thing I remember is people coming down from one of the upper cabins. My family was running down the hill. They came in. My aunt tells me that I went around and slammed windows and closed windows. I have no recollection. But what I do remember is the neighbors from the cabin next door, the Brockeys, came in. And Dan Brockey was about my age. And all I remember, when he and his mom came through the front door of the cabin, he said, a tornado's coming.

• 36:48Speaker 11

  And I would say, within seconds, I'm on the floor, like a rug had been pulled out from under me. People say, did you hear it? Was it like a train? Everybody says a tornado, sounds like a train. I don't remember hearing it. I remember seeing what I saw out the window, which was stuff blowing sideways. I saw a boat fly through the air. You know that's not supposed to happen, then you realize, you know, the power of the storm that's coming at you.

• 37:24Speaker 02

  And this tornado was a mile wide. As it crossed this long lake, it picked up the water. Eyewitnesses actually saw it lake bottom. Fish rained down on the road above the lake. And then all that water dropped back down on top of Sue and her family.

• 37:43Speaker 11

  And from then on, it was fighting for air. There was nothing we could do. We were sucked underwater, and about the time you thought you couldn't breathe anymore, you'd get a gasp of air, and then you'd be sucked under again.

• 38:02Speaker 02

  As Sue struggled, this memory flashed into her brain of an assembly that happened at her high school right before graduation.

• 38:10Speaker 11

  And the speaker was, I think, warning us students, X number of you will be dead by your reunion. And I thought, I'm going to die. I mean, it was just a given. And then all of a sudden, I popped up, out of the water. I was riding on lumber from the cabins, just hanging on to something, and I did not see one single person. And I just remember yelling, God, save us. God, save us.

• 38:46Speaker 11

  And then I saw heads start to pop up, and I saw my Uncle Terry, and I saw my friend Dale Carlson, and I saw my aunt, my pregnant aunt Priscilla, and then my cousin Shane. We were the only five people I knew of that had lived.

• 39:07Speaker 02

  When does your memory end, the initial memory that you had?

• 39:10Speaker 11

  It ends when, after I climbed up the hill, I helped my aunt Priscilla climb over a bunch of wood, because it was almost like wall-to-wall wood. You could almost walk on debris. And I got her up, sitting with her son Shane. And so I went up the hill to the road, a little dirt road that ran that side of the lake. I remember a lady walking toward me down the road, asking if she could help me. And all I said to her was that my swimsuit strap had broken, and she reaches inside, you know how women do, she pulls out a safety pin from somewhere, and she pins my swimsuit

• 39:55Speaker 11

  strap back together, so my swimsuit isn't falling off. Sun is bright, the day got hot. Beautiful day. I mean, the weather just changed.

• 40:13Speaker 02

  You said everybody was kind of alone with their memories and you brought them together. Was that a healing?

• 40:19Speaker 11

  Oh, it was so healing. It was so good for us to talk, to just feel like you could just talk, that it was the topic of the day or the week or whatever, to just talk about everything that you had not talked about for 50 years. And then it was good, I think, for our families, our kids, and they kind of understood what we had been through. How I had lost my grandma, how I'd lost my sister. I mean, it's just good. Details matter. The information matters. The truth matters.

• 40:54Speaker 02

  Sue ended up interviewing hundreds of people about the tornado, eyewitnesses, first responders, the last living sheriff who'd been on the scene that day, the diver who combed the lake for bodies. But she never got the one thing she was really looking for.

• 41:11Speaker 11

  Really what I was hoping for, I was hoping somebody had taken a picture. I wanted to see a picture of it.

• 41:18Speaker 02

  A picture of the tornado?

• 41:19Speaker 11

  The tornado.

• 41:21Speaker 02

  Why?

• 41:23Speaker 11

  Just to kind of put a... I mean, I had pictures of the path of it, but I wondered if anybody from a safe distance had taken out their Instamatic camera and snapped a picture.

• 41:36Speaker 02

  Sue never actually got to see the tornado that hit her family and defined her entire life. Even if she'd stuck her head out of the cabin door for a peek, all she would have seen is a wall of black wind. It was too big. And so now, she basically wants the same thing that Craig and his students wanted. She just wants to see the thing.

• 42:00Speaker 11

  In fact, I met a lady for lunch two weeks ago, and her dad and her sisters and her mom had been crossing that Highway 6 bridge. Right as the tornado was approaching, her dad stopped the car and he wanted to take a picture. And her mom said, "Get back in the car." And because that tornado was moving about 60 miles an hour, so if it's coming right at you, you probably wouldn't even know how close it was. And so he jumped back in the car and they kept driving down Highway 6. So they didn't get a picture, but they also saved their lives.

• 42:44Speaker 02

  If there was a tornado right now, like outside, and we were a safe distance away, would you go out and look at it?

• 42:50Speaker 11

  I would want to see it, absolutely. I would want to see it.

• 43:00Speaker 01

  Thank you, Sue, for sharing your story with the Snap. Snapers, please, do not bother Sue with your tornado stories unless it was an EF4 or higher, and bring receipts.

• 43:13Speaker 11

  You know, if it didn't lift the house up, I'm not impressed. Isn't that awful?

• 43:21Speaker 01

  Sue's memoir is titled "The Lake Turned Upside Down." You can find it at DuganBooks.com. Now, last but not least, thank you, Wyndham High School. Thank you, thank you, thank you, especially Sarah, Benny, and Danielle. Crystal Frank, another student on the trip, she shared her home video with us. This story would not have been possible without her. And that's from Mr. Walter. John, I think you wanted to say one more thing about Mr. Walter?

• 43:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, so Craig has been sending me videos.

• 43:57Speaker 03

  Right, we're day one of storm chasing and you're probably not going to hear me because it's so darn windy, which is good.

• 44:07Speaker 02

  In the past few weeks, he's been out on the road again, chasing tornadoes. He sent me this video of one he saw in Nebraska.

• 44:14Speaker 03

  Okay, we've got a tornado warning right here, right in this cell right here.

• 44:19Speaker 03

  This actually is rotating, it's called a missile cyclone.

• 44:21Speaker 01

  Right on, Craig. Godspeed, stay safe. To all the storm chasers out there, the original score for this piece was by Renzo Goryeo. It was produced by John Facil.

• 44:48Speaker 01

  The Black Wind Special, and if you missed even a moment, no, a Snap Judgment storytelling podcast, it's available right now, wherever you get your podcasts, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, the iHeart Media app. Snap is brought to you by the team that immediately disperses at the first sign of a tornado, except for the Ooh producer, Mr. Mark Ristich, he's out here flying kites. Now there's Nancy Lopez, Pat Lassini Miller, Anna Sussman, Renzo Goryeo, John Facil, Shayna Shealy, Taylor Decot, Flo Wiley, Bo Walsh, Marissa Dodge, David Exame, Regina Barriaco.

• 45:33Speaker 01

  On Team Snap, the union represented producers, artists, editors, and engineers, and members of the National Association of Broadcasting Employees and Technicians, Communications Workers of America, AFL-CIO, Local 51.

• 45:48Speaker 01

  This is not the news. No way is this a news, in fact, you could hear that if tornado weather and load up your 1959 Cadillac ambulance, hersed with cameras, proton packs, PKE meters, and echo goggles, only to realize too late that you accidentally packed for ghost busting, not tornadoing, and you'd still, still not be as far away from the news as this is. But this is PRX.