Larry's Story -The Tornado

Transcribed by Dan Macleod

We arrived in Salt Lake City and went to the tent, a nearly block long structure set up on a parking lot. The tent itself consisted of a canvas shell mounted on a frame made of large aluminum beams and posts. The floor of the tent was a platform a couple of feet off the ground, so you had to go up a few steps to get into it. We were setting up and it started to rain and storm. We heard hail come down and someone shouted it was golf ball sized. It started to blow, but we didn't pay much attention. Then it started to blow harder and Pat said we should get out of there and she started moving toward the far doors.

			I looked up and saw the rafters beginning to sway, then I saw the far doors flapping in the wind. I called to Pat to come back and go out the doors behind us. She followed behind me, and as I neared those doors, they also began to flap. When I touched the door to open it, the wind sucked it open, blowing out the glass and sucking me out too, down the steps and onto the asphalt. I remember trying to put my back to the wind, but it kept shifting in different directions, which I thought was odd.

I looked up and saw a 4 ft. x 8 ft. sheet of plywood soaring by about three feet off the ground. I managed to get in between a large metal shipping container and the wall of a cement block structure at the edge of the parking lot. In this protection from the wind, I was able to move under my own power and I looked back to see where Pat was, at this point the winds stopped. Later I figured it was only about 20 or 30 seconds from start to finish. I went towards in the tent, which was mostly blown down. I saw Pat lying face down at the door. The upper half of her body was still inside, but her legs up to her waist were outside, with the wall or roof of a construction trailer on top. I checked her vital signs then started looking for something to lift the wall off of her. There was also another fellow nearby, trapped under the frame of the same trailer. He was conscious and yelling for help. I spotted an electric lift that was not too far away, but when I tried it, it wouldn't work. So I ran back to check on Pat again.

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