My mother's description of the micorburst incident from her blog post about the trip.
At 6:30 I began writing these notes. I had just survived the far outer edge of a tornado for the second time in my camping life. I was sitting in the tent reading a book to keep my mind off the surrounding storms.I heard a whirring sound outside the left side of my tent. Less than a minute later the whole front of the tent lifted and tried to rollover. The other edges began lifting, also. The tent had come completely loose from its moorings. I pushed the large patio table off me and worked my way frontwards. The rim around the bottom of the door hit me in the chest. The worst thing was that I had a basin of water sitting on the floor near the door. It turned over and the large puddle got part of the floor and some gear wet.
I waded thru the puddle, got my feet in my shoes, stepped out and grabbed one corner tent pole because the tent was trying to blow away into sage and yucca and prickly pear cactus (with beautiful yellow blossoms today) and other prickly things that would have poked many holes and shreds in Agnes. All of a sudden the tent took off, about a foot off the ground, pulled me to the ground, and drug me several feet. It lodged against a small berm. That, plus the weight of my body, stopped onward movement but the wind was still exceptionally strong. It seemed to be going at 100+ mph and I was determined not to let go. In my mind I thought of pictures of people and cartoons in which something similar was happening. I wondered if I could hang onto the tent long as long as the wind would blow.
I let go of the pole with my right hand and fished around in the belt holster and popped my smart fone out. I tried to call Terre but the connection would not go thru. No wonder, there was a ferocious cloud over us all. I then tapped a text message and sent it. In about a minute the text did manage to get gone.
At that moment four neighbors came to help. And, also at that moment, the wind diminished spectacularly and in the calm came rain and a few pieces of hail. I pulled some heavy items out of Agnes, then the neighbors helped me move her to firmer ground. They held her down while I hammered stakes into her holding loops. She seemed unhurt. My bedroll and the top layers of the camping foam under it were dry. On me, the wettest thing was my bluejeans.
I thanked the neighbors and finished putting the gear that had ejected out of the tent back inside. Just as I finished, Terre and Jim drove up. I told them what had happened. Jim suggested that a small microburst had hit my campsite. I later found out that none of the RVs had felt the extraordinarily strong wind.
