What a day! Floods and tornadoes and spinouts, oh my!

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(Today was a messed up day. As you probably have heard, read, watched, etc., downtown Dallas and the surrounding area was ripped up by tornadoes between 5pm and 7pm. The day started off flooding much of the city--2 people lost their lives in the flooding, though, fortunately, as of now, there were no deaths attributed to the twisters and few injuries. There was a lot of damage, though.

Our day started like this: enroute to a production meeting at the location where we are filming 5 Souls--the film  for which I am prop master and my wife is wardrobe designer (and both of us set designers, though she gets 'top billing')--we got caught in the afore mentioned flooding on I-75 between Anna and Sherman, TX. We hit an invisible (because the rain was coming down so hard) puddle precisely as a wind shear hit us (wind shears were up to 65 mph). That combination started a spin-out that was crazy! First, there is a Dually Truck in front of us, an 18 wheeler beside us and one behind us, all going between 50 and 60 mph. We were in the inside lane after passing the 18 wheeler and as I was signaling to exit the passing lane, that's when we caught the puddle & shear. We somehow missed all 3 trucks as we spun out 1, 2, 3 and a half times off the road and into the ditch, stopping a mere 3 ft away from a "Next exit" sign (54A if you're keeping score) facing the direction from which we came, stuck in the mud.

We were there 10 minutes when a good samaritan in a truck with a tow cable pulled us back on to the shoulder. And we were only 20 minutes late to the meeting! Ha!

But later that day, I watched helplessly as a tornado tore through the neighborhood where my son lives with his mom half the time, and especially for the next 3 weeks while we shoot the film. For an hour I waited, a nervous freaking wreck, before I finally heard from them. They were fine, but they were up in North Dallas shopping, still in the line of the tornado. So they were in peril even though they missed it when it hit their neighborhood. In the restaurant where they ate, they were all ordered back into the storeroom when the tornado sirens went off at 6:38pm. But it passed them by, they are unhurt, thankfully!

But after a day like today, I'm fried and tired. There were delays with the actors' luggage, too, so today has sort of been a big ol' clusterfuck for all of us. But it could have been much worse.

--jef)