And though parts of San Antonio got a taste for what was to come on Tuesday evening with a radar-detected rotation over Blanco Road, no one could have expected what drivers encountered on their morning commute near the The Rim Shopping Center.
Tornados are measured by the devastation they cause. In this case, the National Weather Service categorized Wednesday’s tornado preliminarily as an F1, causing “moderate damage” and reaching 100-mile-per-hour peak winds.
Though footage of the tornado might seem brief, the funnel started over DeZavala Road where it made its way to UTSA (for a Bachelor’s in Science?), before hopping over Loop 1604, skirting Six Flags Fiesta Texas, hopping over I-10 and doing some window shopping at The Rim.
In total, the tornado impacted the Northwest side of San Antonio for just under 10 minutes from 7:44 to 7:52 a.m. One San Antonio driver shared what that felt like from the point of view of their vehicle.
Gavin Hawthorne, 28, was on his way to work when his GPS told him to take a different route.
“I was on 1604. I usually get on 1-10, but Maps told me not to today,” Hawthorne told MySA. “Made sense because yesterday on my way in to work there was a huge pool of coned off water so it made sense to me. This was right past where I usually exit for 1-10.”
Then came the Emergency Alert.
“[I] got an alert literally less than 30 seconds before this happened! I saw the debris in the video flying in front of me and figured I should probably stop driving. Good call,” Hawthorne said.
What goes through your mind when facing a developing tornado while in your car? Hawthorne said he ran through the gamut of emotions.
“A mix of fear and excitement. I was shaking and my heart was pounding but at the same time I was in awe,” Hawthorne said. “I had never seen a tornado before this and it was fascinating to see one of the most powerful forces of nature right in front of me. It was scary but super cool to witness.”
Hawthorne’s nearly 2-minute-long video of the tornado as it pivots through Loop 1604 shows the funnel as it continued its destructive path. He stayed on the highway because exiting would have put him right back on the tornado’s path.
“Right when I felt like it was safe to continue I tried to get out of the area as fast as possible. Exiting would have been basically following it so it wasn’t really an option,” Hawthorne said.
Did the thrill of the twister set Hawthorne on the path to become the next Texas-based storm chaser? Not quite. “I… hopefully will not experience it again, as cool as it was to see.”