The Not So Whimsical World of Tornado Destruction

Shreveport, La - Let me start this post by saying I am a weather nerd. I really, really, really get a kick out of monitoring, following, and forecasting weather. I'm not sure where this desire comes from but all my friends will tell you this is the case. I get extremely annoyed in bad weather when I can't be near a full-color weather radar, and by my bed I have a National Weather Service radio which broadcasts all the weather service alerts for this region.

Just two weeks ago while driving to Lafayette, I used radars from both my phone and Donna's and, using comparative analysis, tracked a very severe storm to our west almost down to the mile marker on a paper map she keeps in her car. I like the power of knowledge when it comes to monitoring weather and the possibilty of it catching us. I simply do not like playing guessing games with serious and potentially dangerous weather. We barely slipped past the storm only to find out later it dropped a possible tornado right where we would have been if we had left Shreveport twenty minutes later than we did.

Last month, Donna and I both became certified storm spotters for the NWS when we took a class they sponsor every month. It was a very interesting class where you esentially learn the codes of storm reporting and thereby become the eyes and ears of the meteorolgist who only see whats on the radar.

For Christmas Donna got me a weather station which has everything from a remote rain guage to an anemometer which relays wind speed information to the base station which is in my room. (Like I said, I'm a nerd.)

All that back story brings me to last Thursday. Some bad weather was approaching the Ark-La-Tex and naturally, I was following its every move. By eleven oclock, it looked like the storm was going to miss us. Not only did it appear to be moving north of Shreveport but it appeared to be weakening as well.

Boy, was I wrong. I was standing in the back yard talking on the phone, believing the worst of the weather was over for the evening. Surprisingly, the lightning seemed to be getting closer and louder. Soon, the lightning got so bad that I retreated into the house with the dogs, who by this point has no interest in hanging around outside.

Amazingly, very little ran fell and my anemometer never rose about 15 miles per hour on the variable wind speed. It seemed the storm was a dud after all.

Soon the storm passed and the moon came out. Right after the full moon came out, I got a call from Donna who heard a news report (she was driving at that time from New Orleans up to Shreveport) that Shreveport had been hit by a tornado.

Not believing it possible, I immediately jumped in the car with my roommate Matt and to our complete and utter shock, within four city blocks of my house, the power was out and trees were blocking the road. NONE of us at the house had heard or even suspected a tornado had been forming. Apparently, the NWS itself was caught off guard by the strengthening storm because a tornado warning, as far as I could tell, was never issued for the Shreveport metropolitan area. One warning was issued for Bossier Parish but it was because of a different storm ten miles north of town. In one whole section of town the power was out, trees were down, powerlines were in the road randomly and every traffic signal was out. I am very leary of Shreveport drivers because they are pretty much the most ignorant drivers in the world, so Matt and I made our way home through the darkness dodging trees and powerlines and bad drivers.

The next day, in the daylight, Donna and I went on a drive and captured the following series of photos, which is pretty amazing because this damage was in a perfect line starting about four blocks from my house and continuing on for about two miles across the Red River and into Bossier City, where most of the damage occurred.

I think its worth noting that we found a Texas bluebonnet (in Louisiana of all places) during this tour of the destruction. And comically the perfectly intact delicate flower was right next to the giant tree that fell on Clyde Fant Parkway. (It's the tree Donna and I are pictured beside.)

One person in Shreveport was injured when a tree fell on her car but luckily no one was seriously hurt. This whole experience definitely taught me that violent weather can strike anywhere, anytime, and can catch you off guard even if you're paying attention to it. My advice would be to stay vigilant, be ready, and have a plan in case a tornado finds you. If this tornado had been four blocks south I may have lost the roof to my house. It's worth considering this tornado season. Trust me..I have.

That's the story of my life...

How to Feel Very Small

Step 1: Get in a very small boat.

Step 2: Paddle said boat into VERY large river.

Step 3: Wallow in your insignificance.

A Journey Down Twelve Mile Bayou

Shreveport, La - I’m always up for a little adventure. Last year, my roommates Matt and Jonathan decided to go on an excursion down a body of water here called Twelve Mile Bayou.

The Bayou is frought with history. Back in the early 19th Century, the Red River near Shreveport was blocked by a giant raft of timber. The river blockage was HUGE, measuring nearly eighty miles in length. It was also reported to have been blocking the river for more than three hundred years, if you can imagine. The blockage acted as a dam and the water behind it backed up so immensely it created several very large lakes. Twelve Mile Bayou served as a waterway between the Red River and one of those lakes.

The Great Raft (as it was known) was a pain in the butt for almost everyone because it blocked river commerce. There were ways to needle your way around the blockage, but it involved picking your way through Twelve Mile Bayou and was usually complicated and annoying. Then a military Captain named Henry Shreve (you guessed it) successfully dislodged the Great Raft with great difficulty, and the Red River began flowing again. Afterward, many of the lakes behind the dam dried up leaving only remnants of the many waterways that once proliferated behind it. Later, during the Civil War, Twelve Mile Bayou was used by military forces and even in the late 19th Century the Bayou was frequented by steamboats.

The first time I traveled Twelve Mile Bayou, we were in the wrong kind of boat and it took us nearly ten miserable hours to get back to Hamel Park on the Red River where we parked our truck.

Last week, Donna and I went down the bayou again, me for the second time and her for the first time. This time we took a kayak. Oddly enough, the stretch that took us about eight hours last time only took three and a half in a kayak. Every time I kayak a body of water, I like to ponder the history of people that have boated or paddled the water before me. It’s easy to get lost in the modern considerations of speed boats and cell phones and digital cameras. But if you only pause for a moment, it’s not hard to imagine what the land looked like a hundred or two hundred years before. To me, that’s what kayaking is about.

We had borrowed the kayak from our new friend Brian here in Shreveport. Believe it or not, Brian and his brother have kayaked the Mississippi River in it’s entirety from Lake Itasca, Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico. His brother actually paddled upriver on the Red River back to Shreveport and the local news station KTBS did a story about him. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2bqN_ntSMY&feature=player_embedded)

I will not be kayaking the Mississippi River anytime soon, but after one day on the water, I can’t even imagine what three months would be like. I have always been an outdoorsman so I would not be afraid of the technicality of the trip and the camping. And I supposed physically you would adapt. However, I think what would challenge any man on a trip of that size and magnitude would be the seemingly endless nature of it. That could wear on any man after a while. People like Lewis and Clark really amaze me when I think about stuff like that.

At the end of our short journey I dropped Donna off at her car. The mouth of Twelve Mile Bayou is very conveniently right next to the Samstown Casino parking garage in downtown Shreveport. I continued on into the Red River and Donna picked me up about an hour down river at Hamel Park. A lake wind advisory had been issued by the National Weather Service and let me just say I have a very practical real-world application of the phrase “lake wind advisory.” The river had white caps on it which, at first, were a little intimidating, but gradually grew to be more fun as I faced them headfirst.

All in all it was a successful day. In all honestly, I think a four or five day trip would be more worth the trouble of obtaining and moving the kayak. I have my sights set on a four day trip down the Red River from Dension, Texas back to Shreveport. Perhaps someday soon!

That’s the story of my life…

Things I Never Thought I Would Do, That I Did

Shreveport, La - I thought it would be fun to write down 100 things I’ve done so far in life that I never thought I would do. The reason I felt compelled to do something like this is on the list. (It’s #96.) When I left home, no one ever told me that the most inspiring, outrageous, amazing things that would make me love life even more were the things I never thought I would do. Here are mine no specific order.


1. Worked as a cartoonist.
2. Saw Area 51 in Nevada (from a distance.)
3. Stood on top of a 14,256 foot tall mountain.
4. Owned a goat.
5. Had a goat stand on my couch.
6. Rode a horse bareback through the Rocky Mountains.
7. Kayaked Lake Mojave.
8. Stood on Hoover Dam.
9. Stood inside Hoover Dam.
10. Had a heart-to-heart with Ted Danson.
11. Got paid to lead trail rides in the Rockies.
12. Watched the sun rise over the deserts of Northern Mexico.
13. Met Katie Holmes.
14. Went to a red-carpet party after the CMA awards.
15. Watched a woman dance on a piano I was playing.
16. Recorded a CD.
17. Worked for Servpro.
18. Got Jack Black to listen to my CD.
19. Drove Harold Ramis around.
20. Became friends with David Cross.
21. Went as far east as you can go in the United States.
22. Spent part of a summer in Chihuahua, Mexico.
23. Met Michael Cera.
24. Lived in a town with a population of 52.
25. Had a blog!
26. Watched the sun rise over the Great Plains.
27. Worked at a newspaper.
28. Got a journalism degree.
29. Was a freelance journalist for a while.
30. Worked on a movie set in the deserts of New Mexico.
31. Lived in Louisiana.
32. Lived in Nashville.
33. Played live music in downtown Nashville.
34. Became a full-time piano man.
35. Partied with a donkey in Zacatecas, Mexico.
36. Lived for a winter in the Rocky Mountains.
37. Learned to square dance.
38. Almost got detained in the Mexico City airport because I was illegally in the country.
39. Gave Bernie Mac a piano lesson.
40. Learned a lot about water mitigation.
41. Moved furniture for a living.
42. Worked at a nationwide radio bowling program.
43. Owned two dogs, three goats, a cat, and a miniature horse all at once.
44. Wrote a screenplay.
45. Watched the sun rise over the Atlantic Ocean.
46. Went to New York City four times.
47. Drove from San Angelo to Eastport, Maine.
48. Went cliff jumping into Lake Mojave
49. Went on a cattle drive.
50. Rode in a car for two hours with Hank Azaria in New Mexico.
51. Dove neck deep into Hollywood.
52. Fell in love with Waring, Texas.
53. Went to Boston.
54. Met Tom Cruise.
55. Spent two weeks in Puerto Morelos, Mexico.
56. Drove a U-haul truck full of fake dead monsters and severed heads all the way from Shreveport to Los Angeles.
57. Went to Los Angeles and didn’t even see it in the daylight.
58. Drove all the way across the continental United States.
59. Ran out of money in foreign country. (Don’t try this at home.)
60. Met Bruce Willis.
61. Was published nationally in a magazine.
62. Partied in Playa del Carmen until the sun came up…literally.
63. Drank coffee at a small coffee shop in Zacatecas, Mexico, by a cobble-stone street.
64. Got to hear a Hollywood director say “ACTION!”
65. Watched the sun rise over the Caribbean Ocean.
66. Went to Disneyworld twice.
67. Slept in a bunkhouse at a ranch for four summers.
68. Was a handyman.
69. Almost went on tour with Troma Glidewell.
70. Swam on my lunchbreaks in the Medina river in Bandera, Texas.
71. Accidentally had a steak dinner with Judd Apatow and the president and vice president of Columbia pictures in Las Cruces.
72. Picked up movie stars from the airport in their private planes.
73. Got betrayed by a close friend.
74. Went dancing in Mexico.
75. Swam in a jungle swimming hole in Mexico.
76. Sang on a street corner.
77. Watched my dad and Vinny Jones have dinner at the same table.
78. Almost got stampeded to death by a herd of horses.
79. Gave a eulogy at a friend’s funeral.
80. Lived in a house with a baby (that wasn’t mine)
81. Produced a short-film.
82. Started going bald!
83. Went regularly to a church where I was the only white person.
84. Learned to play the piano!
85. Became an uncle.
86. Drove to Dallas 25 times in eight weeks one summer.
87. Watched Oliver Stone hit on my sister and my girlfriend at the same time.
88. Had friendships that have lasted my whole life.
89. Slept in a cave.
90. Made a living just playing music.
91. Rode the subway.
92. Had a dog survive getting shot.
93. Learned to play the fiddle.
94. Had a relationship that lasted longer than six months.
95. Played jazz in New Orleans.
96. Played the guitar and sang for a bunch of chimpanzees, one of which threw poo at me.
97. Found happiness when I didn’t think I could.
98. Saw a black man become president.
99. Was a working cowboy.
100. Marched in a marching band.
And one more…

101. I lived while I was alive.

That's the story of my life...