Now we and the rest of our contingent in the field were getting the backdraft of this officer’s anger. Evidently he had concluded that storm chasers as a group thought they owned the road. I’m sure there was more behind his attitude than this alone, but the speeding chaser, whoever he was, certainly didn’t help matters any.
The sheriff had already arrested one of our group on the pretext of having written a bad check something like 20 years ago, and now he appeared to be deciding what to do with us. Ben and Adam once again did a great job of communicating with this man, who seemed to progressively cool down as we complied, listened, and affirmed his grievance. He made it quite clear, however, that our pilgrimage across the farmer’s field was going to cost us. If we didn’t fork over whatever yet-to-be-determined amount was required, then he would see to it that bench warrants were issued and we’d wind up paying a whole lot more.
On the whole, I heard plenty of anger and threatening and zero concern for our situation. In the end, though, the cop drove off without further incident and left us alone in the darkness to wait for our ride.
It occurred to me that, uncomfortable as our situation was, I had my travel bag with me and could at least exchange my wet footwear for some nice, dry socks, and my mud-splattered shorts for some clean jeans. Doing so made life more pleasant as we waited for Mike Umscheid to show up.
And the wait wasn’t so bad. It was a good opportunity to get to know Adam and Danny, whom until this day I had never met, and Ben, a fellow Michigan chaser I had first connected with just a few months prior. These are all young guys in their mid to late twenties, but they’re passionate, knowledgeable, and capable chasers with rapidly growing track records. I think it’s a safe bet that May 22 is one day we’ll all remember.
A couple hours passed and Mike finally pulled up. By this time, Ben and Danny had determined to withdraw some money from the ATM and post bail for the fellow chaser, a friend of theirs, who was sitting in the Ipswich jail. So off went those two with Mike, leaving Adam and I sitting by ourselves. A while later, up drove a police car with a special delivery: the chaser in question. It seemed that the charges had been dropped, the chaser had been released, and the sheriff’s deputy–a young guy with a refreshingly pleasant, friendly demeanor–was kind enough to drop him off with us at the Shell station.
This was another chaser whom I had never met until this day, and he had his own story to tell which I won’t get into here. He and Adam talked and I mostly listened. The man was naturally upset about being detained, but he said that the two officers who kept watch over him at the jail treated him well and enjoyed talking with him about storm chasing.
More time passed. It was getting onto dawn when Bart rolled into the parking lot–or rather, when my buddy Tom pulled in driving Bart’s vehicle. Bart was sound asleep in the passenger seat. The guy was utterly exhausted, but he revived when the three of us clambered in.
We headed back east to Aberdeen, where Bart and Mike Umscheid had secured hotel rooms for everyone. My chase partner Mike Kovalchick had a one-bed room, but believe me, at that point the prospect of sleeping on the couch was pure bliss.
I don’t know what time I finally awoke, but when I did, Mike was gone. He and the other vehicle owners were back out at the field, where the farmer–after getting a damage estimate from his insurance agent and securing agreements from all of the vehicle owners–hooked up his tractor to the vehicles and pulled them out.
Mike’s vehicle was a mess, but it was nothing that a trip to the car wash couldn’t cure. Bill and Tom took to the hoses, and I don’t know how many quarters they fed into the wash, but it was a ponderous quantity. The amount of clay caked on that Subaru was just unbelievable; there seemed to be a never-ending supply of it in the wheels, the wheel wells, and underneath the vehicle, but eventually it all came off. Then the four of us headed over to Walmart, grabbed a bunch of cleaning supplies, and went at the interior. When we were finished, Mike’s Outback looked fit for the showroom–sparkling clean, as pristine as if it were brand new, which in fact it was. This had been one heck of a break-in for it, but it had handled the rigors beautifully and come up smiling.
Mike mentioned that the farmer finally did understand why we’d driven onto his field. Once he saw the barn that the tornado had destroyed a short distance from where our road had dead-ended, he evidently got the picture of how things had been. On his part, he just wanted compensation for his damaged property and the time it took to haul out the vehicles. That was only fair. If someone drove up on my lawn in order to avoid colliding with a cement truck, I’d understand completely, but I’d still want help getting my lawn back in shape.
The next day, headed west on another chase, the four of us passed through Ipswich and I snapped a photo of the Shell station for memory’s sake. In case you were wondering why there’s a picture of a gas station at the top of this page, now you know.
If any two people in this whole affair deserve to have medals struck for them, those two are Bart Comstock and Mike Umscheid. If either of you gentlemen happen to read this post–thank you! You drove yourselves far beyond the dropping point to make sure that your fellow chasers were all safe and taken care of. I regret meeting you for the first time in such circumstances. Yet if things had been different, I’d never have gotten to see you guys rise to the occasion so magnificently. I and everyone else in that field owe you a debt of gratitude.
The whole incident is now five weeks behind me. It seems like a year. A lot of life slips by before you know it. But from that day’s fantastic chase, to the hair-raising ride across the field with tornadoes closing in, to the night-long vigil at the Ipswich Shell station, this is one story I’ll be telling for as long as I have a storytelling breath left in me.
