It's spring in the United States, and already the tornado season is wreaking havoc through portions of the south. Pretty much any tornado captured on video is dramatic, but when the twister flips a pickup truck on a highway, admittedly it garners more attention. However, when the pickup then lands on its wheels and drives away? Folks, that gets all the attention.
That's exactly what we have in this extraordinary video from Elgin, Texas. A vicious line of storms hit the area in the evening hours, spawning multiple tornadoes according to KXAN News. One was captured on video by Brian Emfinger as it crossed a highway, filling the sky with debris and catching a red Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck in its vortex. As the video above shows, the truck is flipped on its side and spun before landing back on its wheels. After what's presumably a few seconds of shock, the driver punches the accelerator and we see the pickup drive away from the carnage. Unbelievable.
The video is posted on YouTube through Live Storms Media, but Emfinger also shared it to Twitter where it's racked up nearly 3 million views. More importantly, it generated a reply from Twitter user Marcus Reynolds who claims to have helped the driver afterwards. Reynolds says the driver was a young man, 16 or 17 years old who only suffered a cut on his arm.
Another reply from Reynolds states the glass in the truck was broken out, but doesn't mention other damage. We've been unable to confirm this information on the driver and vehicle is accurate, but one thing is for certain. We see this truck tumble through a tornado then drive away, so someone now has one hell of a story to share at the pub. And Chevy has a potential clip to use for a new tough truck marketing campaign.
When mother nature strikes:
More tornadoes form in the United States than anywhere else in the world, and a majority of those strike the infamous Tornado Alley. Stretching from Texas north through the Great Plains to the Dakotas, Tornado Alley often sees warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico clashing with cooler air off the Rocky Mountains. It's the perfect mix for large supercell thunderstorms that can spawn destructive tornadoes with wind speeds reaching 300 mph.