It was the summer 1976, and we were on a motorcycle in “tornado alley”.

We had been riding all day under dark clouds, and through intermittent thunderstorms, when the sky suddenly turned a strange pinkish-yellow color.

Rain with hail started beating down so hard that we couldn’t see the road, so I pulled up under the first overpass; there was a car already parked there under cover.

When I shutdown the bike’s engine, I could hear people yelling. When I took off my helmet and looked around, I saw 5 people huddled up under the bridge deck, waving their arms and motioning for us to come up there. Before we could even comprehend what exactly was going on, we saw a huge black funnel cloud out over the highway behind us.

The decision was easy… run for our lives into that little space between the overpass embankment and the bridge deck, and then hang on to each other and the bridge beams for dear life.

A blinding amount of debris and dust was sucked at high velocity under the bridge, and there was a horrific noise (kind of like 100 screaming jet engines), as the tornado crossed highway about 1/4 mile behind us.

The wind finally died down, the air cleared, and then the sun came out.

Just another day on our summer-long Bicentennial motorcycle tour.

For more about this adventure, see: Charles Sendicker's answer to What problems do motorcycle bikers face during long distance rides?