Devastation in Iowa City Tonight

[Jay Honeck]

So I was at our airport commission meeting tonight when the tornado
sirens went off. We had noticed the skies becoming black, but were all
too wrapped up in talk of paving taxiways to pay much heed.

The meeting abruptly adjourned with the sirens, and everyone tried to
find the long-rumored basement in the terminal building. The second
floor conference room, with its two-story windows overlooking the ramp
(and facing West), just didn't seem like a good place to be, and we all
ended up down in the boiler room.

After a while we felt silly, and went up to the weather room, where we
watched the storm developing on radar. When it looked like the worst
was past, I called Mary and made a mad dash for the convertible (thank
goodness I had put the top up!) through moderate rain. Strangely, she
said that if I didn't leave right away, to wait 15 minutes, because the
worst was yet to come -- which didn't fit my radar picture at all.

Well, apparently the TV station's "Live Doppler Radar" is a better
information source than the airport version. Heading toward home, the
hail began. Within seconds it sounded like machine-gun fire, and I
quickly drove underneath a gas station's canopy with a few other
hapless motorists. For the next ten minutes, we watched as
ping-pong-ball-sized hail bombarded Iowa City. The flags were straight
out, the wind was howling, and the temperature was almost hot. It was
very weird, and I flipped on a local AM radio station that was
interviewing a guy maybe a mile away from me, talking to them on his
cell phone.

Suddenly, the flag in front of me dropped straight down. The hail
continued for a minute, but the wind absolutely died. Then it was just
rain -- and then it stopped, too. I was wondering what the hell was
going on, when the guy on the radio suddenly said "Oh my God, there's a
funnel cloud!" The announcer asked him where he was, and he said "On
Benton Street!"

I was on Muscatine Dr., maybe 3/4 of a mile away, facing away from it.

My concern for hail damage instantly gone, I called Mary, who was down
the basement of our home with our kids. I told her I was inbound, and
to raise the garage door. I didn't want the power to go out and to be
stuck outside with a tornado approaching. Racing toward home, flying
down a tree-lined street that offered a limited view to the south, I
glanced in the direction of the reported tornado when, in a flash of
lighning I saw it.

There was no way to judge scale or direction of travel, in that
millisecond flash, but it was big. A giant, V-shaped funnel was
looming over the city, and it couldn't have been six blocks away! In
fact, for me to have been able to see it at all, over those trees, it
was either 50 stories tall, or it was right on top of me!

Suddenly endowed with the driving prowess of Mario Andretti, I punched
the pedal to the floor. I glanced down and saw 70 mph in second gear,
and told Mary to get back downstairs.

Not wanting to look back, I slid to the last stop sign before my house.
Incredibly, with the tornado sirens wailing, hail flying, constant
lightning and high winds, and a funnel cloud bringing up the rear, an
older woman was dutifully driving 25 mph up our road. I suspect all
she saw of me was a candy-apple-red streak...

At last down the basement, with a beer and the kids, we watched the
Cedar Rapids newscasters going absolutely ballistic over the "severe
weather" in nearby Iowa City. Only difference was, this time it was
for real. Reports were soon coming in of damage on Riverside Drive --
the road our hotel is on -- and of injuries inside the Menards nearby.
(This the Menards I've visited nearly every day since we opened.)

When they announced that all off-duty police and firemen were to report
for duty, and that the Army National Guard were being called out, I
knew we were seeing the real deal. I called my night manager, and got
no answer. I then tried his cell phone, but he was busy holding the
door to the airport building, which was at that moment trying to be
sucked off its hinges. I told him to call me back after he got to
safety.

A few minutes later, he called. The storm was past, and he was out
assessing damage, but the power was out, and everything was inky black.
Best he could tell, the only damage was to the fence around our pool,
which was down, a roof vent was gone, and a bunch of shingles were off.
I told him I'd be right down.

That was two hours ago. I took the highway south of town, and was able
to get to the hotel fairly quickly, despite the stoplights being out.
The hotel grounds are a shambles, with branches, shingles, leaves, and
debris of all kinds literally everywhere, but it appears that we got
off easy. Although we received wind damage to the roof, and the fence
is toast, all of our trees survived, and no windows were blown out.

This is almost unbelievable, as just a few blocks away are scenes of
utter devastation. Menards is a shambles, and much of their building
materials are scattered around town. Our airport commission
president's Dodge dealership is gone. His cars are smashed flat, and
his showroom is splinters, with the roof laying across part of
Riverside Drive. We were at the meeting, huddled in the boiler room
together, and now his business is gone.

Down the road from us, our favorite Dairy Queen is simply gone. One of
the signs is still there, but the store itself is just no longer there.
And, being an 85 degree evening, there had to have been a bunch of
employees in there when the storm hit.

It's possible to draw a line from Menard's to the Dodge dealership,
right through the Dairy Queen, and into downtown proper. It missed our
hotel by a few hundred yards, at most.

Downtown is a weird scene of utter pandemonium, combined with the
ambience of an all-night kegger. All the college kids -- 35,000 of
them -- are out partying, surveying the changed streetscape. The roof
of a gas station was lifted up, moved about six feet toward the street,
and then dropped back down, destroying everything inside. Cars are
upside down, and one was evidently sucked off the top of a six-story
parking ramp, and dropped into the street.

It took my son and I an hour to drive the mile from the hotel to the
eastern edge of downtown. Dozens of alarms are wailing, set off when
hundreds (thousands?) of windows blew out. Rubble and debris are
everywhere, with stop lights twisted around light poles, and dumpsters
tossed into the road like tumbleweeds. Fire trucks, ambulances,
police cars, front end loaders, and National Guard vehicles struggled
to get through the devastation and traffic -- and all the while boom
boxes were playing and the college kids were out taking pictures and
video. Some idiots launched a few bottle rockets, and got the police
riled up. Destroyed gas stations are cordoned off, in case of leaks,
and they sure didn't need any fireworks setting off a conflagration.

Eventually we made it out of the area, and were able to get home. Our
garbage -- with six bags of leaves -- is sitting out front, absolutely
unmoved. Not a blade of grass is out of place.

Nature is amazing, and we were so very lucky. Our hangar and plane are
unscathed, the hotel was just nicked a glancing blow, and our home is
fine. There's no word on casualties yet, but from the looks of things,
there almost had to be some.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

[[email protected]]

Having *never* seen a storm or twisting winds (never have them in
southern India), a rush of air rustling furiously through the hair
always seems like something I want to really see and be in, and enjoy.
The very idea of a tornado or hurricane titillates me, yet I must
confess your prose makes me think again :\

Glad you came away unscathed, mate.

Ramapriya


Jay Honeck wrote:
> So I was at our airport commission meeting tonight when the tornado

[Montblack]

("Jay Honeck" wrote)
> This is almost unbelievable, as just a few blocks away are scenes of utter
> devastation. Menards is a shambles, and much of their buildingmaterials
> are scattered around town. Our airport commission president's Dodge
> dealership is gone. His cars are smashed flat, and his showroom is
> splinters, with the roof laying across part of Riverside Drive. We were
> at the meeting, huddled in the boiler room together, and now his business
> is gone.
>
> Down the road from us, our favorite Dairy Queen is simply gone. One of
> the signs is still there, but the store itself is just no longer there.
> And, being an 85 degree evening, there had to have been a bunch of
> employees in there when the storm hit.
>
> It's possible to draw a line from Menard's to the Dodge dealership, right
> through the Dairy Queen, and into downtown proper. It missed our hotel by
> a few hundred yards, at most.


VERY GLAD you and yours didn't get ...HIT!

Our scare was last year, hiding out with the cars in/under a local (cement)
Park and Ride ramp. Our townhouse garage was full of crap and we wanted to
hide the two cars from the anticipated hail. We had just pulled into the two
story parking structure, hiding behind a ramp, when it hit. Tornado went
north of us by about a half mile.

Tornado? WTF? We were listening to the radio....

Destruction (on the light side - roofs, trees, sheds, signs, campers, more
trees, etc) along its narrow two mile path, not much damage elswere in the
neighborhood. It lifted just north of ANE. We had branches down, that was
it.

Yours, tonight, sounds like a bad one. CNN has nothing on it yet.

Our thoughts and prayers go out to all in the Iowa City area this evening.


Montblack
If you've never been around an evening tornado - the following day all you
hear is 14 hours of chain saws running.

[Matt Barrow]

Geez!!!!

I got within a mile of a tornado once, out in open range and that was once
too often!

Hope all works out!

--
Matt
---------------------
Matthew W. Barrow
Site-Fill Homes, LLC.
Montrose, CO
"Jay Honeck" > wrote in message
oups.com...
> So I was at our airport commission meeting tonight when the tornado
> sirens went off. We had noticed the skies becoming black, but were all
> too wrapped up in talk of paving taxiways to pay much heed.
>
> The meeting abruptly adjourned with the sirens, and everyone tried to
> find the long-rumored basement in the terminal building. The second
> floor conference room, with its two-story windows overlooking the ramp
> (and facing West), just didn't seem like a good place to be, and we all
> ended up down in the boiler room.
>
> After a while we felt silly, and went up to the weather room, where we
> watched the storm developing on radar. When it looked like the worst
> was past, I called Mary and made a mad dash for the convertible (thank
> goodness I had put the top up!) through moderate rain. Strangely, she
> said that if I didn't leave right away, to wait 15 minutes, because the
> worst was yet to come -- which didn't fit my radar picture at all.
>
> Well, apparently the TV station's "Live Doppler Radar" is a better
> information source than the airport version. Heading toward home, the
> hail began. Within seconds it sounded like machine-gun fire, and I
> quickly drove underneath a gas station's canopy with a few other
> hapless motorists. For the next ten minutes, we watched as
> ping-pong-ball-sized hail bombarded Iowa City. The flags were straight
> out, the wind was howling, and the temperature was almost hot. It was
> very weird, and I flipped on a local AM radio station that was
> interviewing a guy maybe a mile away from me, talking to them on his
> cell phone.
>
> Suddenly, the flag in front of me dropped straight down. The hail
> continued for a minute, but the wind absolutely died. Then it was just
> rain -- and then it stopped, too. I was wondering what the hell was
> going on, when the guy on the radio suddenly said "Oh my God, there's a
> funnel cloud!" The announcer asked him where he was, and he said "On
> Benton Street!"
>
> I was on Muscatine Dr., maybe 3/4 of a mile away, facing away from it.
>
> My concern for hail damage instantly gone, I called Mary, who was down
> the basement of our home with our kids. I told her I was inbound, and
> to raise the garage door. I didn't want the power to go out and to be
> stuck outside with a tornado approaching. Racing toward home, flying
> down a tree-lined street that offered a limited view to the south, I
> glanced in the direction of the reported tornado when, in a flash of
> lighning I saw it.
>
> There was no way to judge scale or direction of travel, in that
> millisecond flash, but it was big. A giant, V-shaped funnel was
> looming over the city, and it couldn't have been six blocks away! In
> fact, for me to have been able to see it at all, over those trees, it
> was either 50 stories tall, or it was right on top of me!
>
> Suddenly endowed with the driving prowess of Mario Andretti, I punched
> the pedal to the floor. I glanced down and saw 70 mph in second gear,
> and told Mary to get back downstairs.
>
> Not wanting to look back, I slid to the last stop sign before my house.
> Incredibly, with the tornado sirens wailing, hail flying, constant
> lightning and high winds, and a funnel cloud bringing up the rear, an
> older woman was dutifully driving 25 mph up our road. I suspect all
> she saw of me was a candy-apple-red streak...
>
> At last down the basement, with a beer and the kids, we watched the
> Cedar Rapids newscasters going absolutely ballistic over the "severe
> weather" in nearby Iowa City. Only difference was, this time it was
> for real. Reports were soon coming in of damage on Riverside Drive --
> the road our hotel is on -- and of injuries inside the Menards nearby.
> (This the Menards I've visited nearly every day since we opened.)
>
> When they announced that all off-duty police and firemen were to report
> for duty, and that the Army National Guard were being called out, I
> knew we were seeing the real deal. I called my night manager, and got
> no answer. I then tried his cell phone, but he was busy holding the
> door to the airport building, which was at that moment trying to be
> sucked off its hinges. I told him to call me back after he got to
> safety.
>
> A few minutes later, he called. The storm was past, and he was out
> assessing damage, but the power was out, and everything was inky black.
> Best he could tell, the only damage was to the fence around our pool,
> which was down, a roof vent was gone, and a bunch of shingles were off.
> I told him I'd be right down.
>
> That was two hours ago. I took the highway south of town, and was able
> to get to the hotel fairly quickly, despite the stoplights being out.
> The hotel grounds are a shambles, with branches, shingles, leaves, and
> debris of all kinds literally everywhere, but it appears that we got
> off easy. Although we received wind damage to the roof, and the fence
> is toast, all of our trees survived, and no windows were blown out.
>
> This is almost unbelievable, as just a few blocks away are scenes of
> utter devastation. Menards is a shambles, and much of their building
> materials are scattered around town. Our airport commission
> president's Dodge dealership is gone. His cars are smashed flat, and
> his showroom is splinters, with the roof laying across part of
> Riverside Drive. We were at the meeting, huddled in the boiler room
> together, and now his business is gone.
>
> Down the road from us, our favorite Dairy Queen is simply gone. One of
> the signs is still there, but the store itself is just no longer there.
> And, being an 85 degree evening, there had to have been a bunch of
> employees in there when the storm hit.
>
> It's possible to draw a line from Menard's to the Dodge dealership,
> right through the Dairy Queen, and into downtown proper. It missed our
> hotel by a few hundred yards, at most.
>
> Downtown is a weird scene of utter pandemonium, combined with the
> ambience of an all-night kegger. All the college kids -- 35,000 of
> them -- are out partying, surveying the changed streetscape. The roof
> of a gas station was lifted up, moved about six feet toward the street,
> and then dropped back down, destroying everything inside. Cars are
> upside down, and one was evidently sucked off the top of a six-story
> parking ramp, and dropped into the street.
>
> It took my son and I an hour to drive the mile from the hotel to the
> eastern edge of downtown. Dozens of alarms are wailing, set off when
> hundreds (thousands?) of windows blew out. Rubble and debris are
> everywhere, with stop lights twisted around light poles, and dumpsters
> tossed into the road like tumbleweeds. Fire trucks, ambulances,
> police cars, front end loaders, and National Guard vehicles struggled
> to get through the devastation and traffic -- and all the while boom
> boxes were playing and the college kids were out taking pictures and
> video. Some idiots launched a few bottle rockets, and got the police
> riled up. Destroyed gas stations are cordoned off, in case of leaks,
> and they sure didn't need any fireworks setting off a conflagration.
>
> Eventually we made it out of the area, and were able to get home. Our
> garbage -- with six bags of leaves -- is sitting out front, absolutely
> unmoved. Not a blade of grass is out of place.
>
> Nature is amazing, and we were so very lucky. Our hangar and plane are
> unscathed, the hotel was just nicked a glancing blow, and our home is
> fine. There's no word on casualties yet, but from the looks of things,
> there almost had to be some.
> --
> Jay Honeck
> Iowa City, IA
> Pathfinder N56993
> www.AlexisParkInn.com
> "Your Aviation Destination"
>

[Skywise]

You're an amazing story teller, Jay.

Out here in Kah-lee-for-nyuh we don't get much in the way of
twisters. I mean, they do happen, but they're not much more
than oversized whirlwinds. Some trees down and that's about it.

However, I've had two closish calls with them just the same.

About 12 years ago one of these "super-whirlwinds" had gone by
two blocks from where I lived. Yeah, bad strom blew through, but
didn't notice any 'twister' till it was on the news.

The other time was at work. I was back in the warehouse staring
out the door watching the weather. Suddenly the wind picked up.
Then stuff started swirling around in the parking lot. I stepped
outside and looked up. The clouds were swirling like mad. I
thought it might be a funnel cloud but wasn't sure having never
seen one in real life. Wlp, that evening on the news there was
a report of a small twister hitting some neighborhood directly
down path from where I was. Turned out I was right.

You know, I thought to myself the other day after seeing some
of the tornado damage in the Midwest, that I think I'd rather
deal with the earthquakes here than a bunch of supercells out
there.

Brian
--
http://www.skywise711.com - Lasers, Seismology, Astronomy, Skepticism
Seismic FAQ: http://www.skywise711.com/SeismicFAQ/SeismicFAQ.html
Quake "predictions": http://www.skywise711.com/quakes/EQDB/index.html
Sed quis custodiet ipsos Custodes?

[Jay Beckman]

"Jay Honeck" > wrote in message
oups.com...
> So I was at our airport commission meeting tonight when the tornado
> sirens went off.

<SNIP>

Jay (Central),

As a former Michigander, I sure remember those occasions when the sky would
turn that unique / bizarre blackish-green and how we'd suddenly feel the
need to go downstairs and shoot pool when it got "too quiet" outside.

Glad to hear that you, Mary and the kids are ok and I'm glad Mother Nature
spared the Hotel.

I hope the airport is ok too...?

Jay (West)

[Grumman-581]

"Jay Honeck" > wrote in message
oups.com...
<snip>

Post photos...

[Peter Duniho]

Glad to hear things are fine, at least for you. I guess it's going to be
some interesting times in the near future, watching and helping with the
cleanup and rebuilding. You weren't kidding about having a foot on a banana
peel. :)

By the way, Mr. English Major:

"Jay Honeck" > wrote in message
oups.com...
> [...]
> It took my son and I...

What's up with that?

:p

I hope you're wrong about the casualties. Guess we'll find out soon enough
about that.

Pete

[Greg Farris]

Wow - great story! You convey the feeling very well.
Saw one of those in Minneapolis back in the early '80's. Right in the city.
As you say, the wind stopped - then it poured such a heavy rain - I've never
seen rain like that. The funnel went through several miles from where I was. I
remember an MTC bus ended up in an auto parts store - Inside the display
window - almost looked like they were selling it.

I'm amazed you're having 85 degree evenings in Iowa City in mid April.
Is this typical?

[cjcampbell]

Jay Honeck wrote:
>
> Nature is amazing, and we were so very lucky. Our hangar and plane are
> unscathed, the hotel was just nicked a glancing blow, and our home is
> fine. There's no word on casualties yet, but from the looks of things,
> there almost had to be some.

Glad to hear you are OK, Jay.

[Denny]

Jay, glad you are OK, now let me beat you about the head and shoulders
for going out in your car with a twister dancing across town <and you
knew it - and a convertible no less - jeez>...
Anyway, like Jay Beckman, as a lifelong Michigan resident I can see,
feel, and smell a tornado before it forms... I have up close and
personal experience with being picked up by a twister in 1953... I
survived and I'm not emotionally traumatized, but I am wary of those
monsters Next time get your butt into a basement and stay there until
it is all over...

denny...

[g n p]

Exceptional write-up, Jay.
Thanks. SO glad all of you OK.




"Jay Honeck" > wrote in message
oups.com...
>
> So I was at our airport commission meeting tonight when the tornado
> sirens went off. We had noticed the skies becoming black, but were all
.................................................. ...
.................................................. ....
.................................................. ......

[Jay Honeck]

> I hope the airport is ok too...?

Yeah, even though Menards is on the north edge of the airport, it
survived unscathed. Atlas shrugged off the storm.

Well, except for the 8 billion pieces of wood, insullation, rebar and
shingles scattered EVERYWHERE. FOD is the name of the game.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

[Jay Honeck]

> Jay, glad you are OK, now let me beat you about the head and shoulders
> for going out in your car with a twister dancing across town <and you
> knew it - and a convertible no less - jeez>...

Trust me, I felt pretty stupid, especially after Mary told me not to
leave because one of several tornadoes were approaching.

Trouble was, I seriously thought that I had the superior weather
instrument, being in the weather room at the airport. The radar there
was showing that the worst of the storm had passed.

I won't make that mistake again.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

[Jay Honeck]

> By the way, Mr. English Major:
>
> "Jay Honeck" > wrote in message
> > It took my son and I...
>
> What's up with that?

Hey, it was 1 AM when I finished that. No proof reading. Gimme a
break...

;-)

> I hope you're wrong about the casualties. Guess we'll find out soon enough
> about that.

Dunno yet. Last I heard there were injuries, but no fatalaties -- but I
just woke up. The front page of our newspaper is loaded with pictures
that look like London in the Blitz.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

[Jay Honeck]

> I'm amazed you're having 85 degree evenings in Iowa City in mid April.
> Is this typical?

No! We beat the temperature record for yesterday by over ten degrees.

Very unusual weather, for April.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

[Nathan Young]

On 13 Apr 2006 22:06:51 -0700, "Jay Honeck" >
wrote:

>So I was at our airport commission meeting tonight when the tornado
>sirens went off. We had noticed the skies becoming black, but were all
>too wrapped up in talk of paving taxiways to pay much heed.

I live in Chicago area, and the storms headed this way after Iowa
City. No where near as much devastation, just a lot of lightning and
a bit of hail.

That was a very odd strorm. It was influenced by a stationary front
sweeping across the midwest, but the activity was very localized. All
the cells were concentrated within an almost perfect circle of 50nm.
No rain anywhere else. Plus the visible satellite pictured showed CLR
conditions everywhere minus the 50nm circle. Quite odd.

[Tom]

Great write-up Jay. You made us feel your excitement with your words.
Thanks for the update of your situation. We were worried about you and
the family. Now go pick up some of those shingles lying around and get
on the roof.

Tom

[Jose]

So Jay, why aren't you a professional writer?

Jose
--
The price of freedom is... well... freedom.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

[Gene Seibel]

Lived in the Midwest most of my life and have never come face to face
with one, but saw the results a few times. With frequency of storms
this year, it seems to only be a matter of time. I hear there has
already been more this year than all last year.
--
Gene Seibel
Hangar 131 - http://pad39a.com/gene/plane.html
Because I fly, I envy no one.

[john smith]

In article om>,
"Jay Honeck" > wrote:

> > I'm amazed you're having 85 degree evenings in Iowa City in mid April.
> > Is this typical?

> No! We beat the temperature record for yesterday by over ten degrees.
> Very unusual weather, for April.

Glad to hear to and yours came through it alright.

Look at the temperature difference before and after the storm. That is
what causes the rotation.
Remember that NEXRAD has a minimum eight-minute lag between the actual
weather and what is diplayed. Your local doppler radar displays the
actual conditions.
When the airport gets de-fodded, take Atlas up and photograph the damage
path. It will not be difficult to determine where it begins and ends.
(Please post if possible.)

The path of the tornado that hit the norther Cincinnati suburbs ten(?)
years ago was incredibile to follow. The industrial park behind my
sisters house was leveled. An industrial building 50 yards behind her
house disappeared, yet the trees on the fenceline and her house were
unscathed.
That storm prompted every member of our family to purchase weather
radios. Radio Shack had waiting lists for every model for over six
months.

[Montblack]

("Denny" wrote)
> Anyway, like Jay Beckman, as a lifelong Michigan resident I can see,
> feel, and smell a tornado before it forms... I have up close and
> personal experience with being picked up by a twister in 1953... I
> survived and I'm not emotionally traumatized, but I am wary of those
> monsters Next time get your butt into a basement and stay there until
> it is all over...


Agree with Denny.

Mary would be known around town as The Widow Honeck ...."Hubba, hubba."

You do that again and we're going to have to start calling you Dorothy!

http://www.tapestryweb.org/tornado/images/oz4.jpg


Montblack

[Montblack]

("Jay Honeck" wrote)
> I won't make that mistake again.


You owe (S)omebody BIG time. <g>
<http://www.cbsnews.com/images/2006/04/14/imageIAIOP10104140438.jpg>

Easter Sunrise Service will be INSIDE the Church this year.

Bring the kids. "When we your your age...."

Give them a taste for this whole religion thing. You take them to museums
and State Parks. Not a bad time for a Jay and Mary (living memory)
time-capsule ...a Catholic mass - minus roof.

"Lift you hearts and your hands and your head to the heavens..."
"Hey, I can see it!"

Shoes shined Joe? Where's Becca's other white glove? Is the Easter offering
envelope still on the fridge? Where's my nice tie? Parents used to get
family pictures taken on Easter because that's the one time all nine family
members were all in their very best clothes.

Those kids will ALWAYS remember The Good Friday/Easter Tornado of '06.

Paul
Twin Cities has:
The Halloween Snow Storm of '91 ("The Perfect Storm" - storm)
The Floods of '65 (1969, 1993, 1997 were less dramatic)
The Armistice Day Blizzard of 1940
<http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/200011/10_steilm_blizzard-m/>
The Heat Wave of '36

[Edwin Johnson]

On 2006-04-14, Jay Honeck > wrote:
> So I was at our airport commission meeting tonight when the tornado
> sirens went off. We had noticed the skies becoming black, but were all
>
> Nature is amazing, and we were so very lucky. Our hangar and plane are
> unscathed, the hotel was just nicked a glancing blow, and our home is
> fine. There's no word on casualties yet, but from the looks of things,

Jay, what an experience! I've never been through a tornado, and am not
hoping for such. It is wonderful to read that you didn't have much damage to
plane, hotel, and home and, yes, I'd say you were very lucky.

....Edwin
--
__________________________________________________ __________
"Once you have flown, you will walk the earth with your eyes
turned skyward, for there you have been, there you long to
return."-da Vinci http://bellsouthpwp2.net/e/d/edwinljohnson

[Jeff]

Wow. You don't have thunderstorms? I know that different climates produce
different weather, but "never have them"??? That's amazing.

jf

> wrote in message
oups.com...
> Having *never* seen a storm or twisting winds (never have them in
> southern India), a rush of air rustling furiously through the hair
> always seems like something I want to really see and be in, and enjoy.
> The very idea of a tornado or hurricane titillates me, yet I must
> confess your prose makes me think again :\
>
> Glad you came away unscathed, mate.
>
> Ramapriya
>
>
> Jay Honeck wrote:
>> So I was at our airport commission meeting tonight when the tornado
>

[.Blueskies.]

"Jay Honeck" > wrote in message oups.com...
> So I was at our airport commission meeting tonight when the tornado
> sirens went off. We had noticed the skies becoming black, but were all
> too wrapped up in talk of paving taxiways to pay much heed.
>

Wow, Jay, well written in the heat of battle. No doubt you were a newspaperman...

I've heard of the happenings there on the TV this morning. Glad you and yours are OK; hope the others are coming
through...


--
Dan DeVillers
http://www.ameritech.net/users/ddevillers/start.html


..

[Morgans]

"john smith" > wrote

> Look at the temperature difference before and after the storm. That is
> what causes the rotation.

Not exactly. That is one factor, though, in the strength of the storm.
--
Jim in NC

[Steven Barnes]

I live in Springfield, IL & we had 2 rounds with tornadoes only 3 weeks
apart during the last couple months. The first did the most damage. The
second rounds barely touched the ground before it jumped back up. We had no
damage at our house, while a mile down the road, roofs are being pulled off.

Funny thing, my wife & I were actually staying at Jay's inn that weekend &
were supposed to come back on Sunday afternoon. We left Saturday due to the
forecast. Sunday night is when the 2nd round of storms hit us.

Glad you're ok.

I'm gonna stop shopping for a strike finder & look for a tornado finder...



"Jay Honeck" > wrote in message
oups.com...
[snip]
>
> Suddenly, the flag in front of me dropped straight down. The hail
> continued for a minute, but the wind absolutely died. Then it was just
> rain -- and then it stopped, too. I was wondering what the hell was
> going on, when the guy on the radio suddenly said "Oh my God, there's a
> funnel cloud!" The announcer asked him where he was, and he said "On
> Benton Street!"
>
[snip]

[RST Engineering]

Glad you and yours are safe. Earthquakes seem a minor nuisance compared to
this.

Jim



>
> Downtown is a weird scene of utter pandemonium, combined with the
> ambience of an all-night kegger. All the college kids -- 35,000 of
> them -- are out partying, surveying the changed streetscape. The roof
> of a gas station was lifted up, moved about six feet toward the street,
> and then dropped back down, destroying everything inside. Cars are
> upside down, and one was evidently sucked off the top of a six-story
> parking ramp, and dropped into the street.

[AJ]

That record-high teperature no doubt was a contributing factor to the
tornado.

AJ

[Montblack]

("Greg Farris" wrote)
> Wow - great story! You convey the feeling very well. Saw one of those in
> Minneapolis back in the early '80's. Right in the city.


There are a lot of stories like yours because that '81 tornado made a path
right through BOTH cities, and a number of suburbs, too. It was a Saturday
or Sunday afternoon.

My brother-in-law's parent's house didn't even have a broken window, house
next door was leveled. (Roseville).

In '84 my gal came out of a health club very near Apache Plaza, with her
sisters, to find Beirut in the parking lot - her car spared. She said they
zigged and zagged around all of the destruction and upturned vehicles - and
got the heck out of there. There was a snowstorm the next day.
http://apacheplaza.com/tornado.html

> I'm amazed you're having 85 degree evenings in Iowa City in mid April.
> Is this typical?

Record High of 84 in Minneapolis yesterday (Thursday).


Montblack

[Steve A]

Jay,

Glad to hear you are all OK, and that the Inn and Atlas escaped damage.
Looking forward to the pre-OSH pool party.

Steve

[RomeoMike]

Your dedication to this newsgroup is amazing. "Two hours" after the
storm you are posting a short story about it. I'm another ex-Michigander
and had a twister go through my property, snapping 19 oak trees in
half but not damaging the house. It's frightening. My sympathies to Iowa
City.

Jay Honeck wrote:

>

[Icebound]

"Jay Honeck" > wrote in message
ups.com...
>
> Trouble was, I seriously thought that I had the superior weather
> instrument, being in the weather room at the airport. The radar there
> was showing that the worst of the storm had passed.
>


I find that very interesting.

Is this an NWS NOAA radar, or is it a "private" operation (municipal, etc.)?
Is it a Doppler?

Is it possibly an operator problem? It almost sounds like you were looking
at an inappropriate "mode".

[Jay Honeck]

> Your dedication to this newsgroup is amazing. "Two hours" after the
> storm you are posting a short story about it.

It's therapy. Besides, I was too wound up to sleep.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

[Icebound]

"Jay Honeck" > wrote in message
ups.com...
>> I'm amazed you're having 85 degree evenings in Iowa City in mid April.
>> Is this typical?
>
> No! We beat the temperature record for yesterday by over ten degrees.
>
> Very unusual weather, for April.
> --

Those dewpoints in the mid and high sixties helped, too.

You might review the KIOW METAR for the past 36 hours...

.... and note that it, being a TSNO AUTO, does not quite provide the same
sense of the situation, when compared to your first-person observation.

[A Guy Called Tyketto]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Skywise > wrote:
> You're an amazing story teller, Jay.

Agreed. I'm also glad to hear that you and yours are safe.
> Out here in Kah-lee-for-nyuh we don't get much in the way of
> twisters. I mean, they do happen, but they're not much more
> than oversized whirlwinds. Some trees down and that's about it.

Living out in Sacramento, I'd also agree. the tornadoes here
are, compared to the midwest, laughable. Don't get me wrong, they are
just as serious for people here, but nothing compared to back in the
Midwest.

> You know, I thought to myself the other day after seeing some
> of the tornado damage in the Midwest, that I think I'd rather
> deal with the earthquakes here than a bunch of supercells out
> there.

Jay's story actually has me longing for them again! After going
through a number of them in Omaha all of my 20something years, then
moving, it actually has me missing those. Outside the fact that
everyone out here I've talked to about tornadoes thinks they are just
tall tales!

If only they knew...

BL.
- --
Brad Littlejohn | Email:
Unix Systems Administrator, |
Web + NewsMaster, BOFH.. Smeghead! :) | http://www.wizard.com/~tyketto
PGP: 1024D/E319F0BF 6980 AAD6 7329 E9E6 D569 F620 C819 199A E319 F0BF

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[Matt Barrow]

"Jay Honeck" > wrote in message
ups.com...
>> Your dedication to this newsgroup is amazing. "Two hours" after the
>> storm you are posting a short story about it.
>
> It's therapy. Besides, I was too wound up to sleep.

No kidding!!

[Andrew Gideon]

On Fri, 14 Apr 2006 14:12:50 +0000, Jose wrote:

> So Jay, why aren't you a professional writer?

Interesting, eh? He's been asked that question here (in one form or
another) multiple times. Why hasn't some periodical knocked him on the
head and dragged him to a work processor?

Jay: Excellent write-up, and I'll add myself to the list of people glad
you and yours are okay.

- Andrew

[Roger]

On 13 Apr 2006 22:06:51 -0700, "Jay Honeck" >
wrote:

>So I was at our airport commission meeting tonight when the tornado
>sirens went off. We had noticed the skies becoming black, but were all
>too wrapped up in talk of paving taxiways to pay much heed.
<snip>
>Eventually we made it out of the area, and were able to get home. Our
>garbage -- with six bags of leaves -- is sitting out front, absolutely
>unmoved. Not a blade of grass is out of place.
>
>Nature is amazing, and we were so very lucky. Our hangar and plane are
>unscathed, the hotel was just nicked a glancing blow, and our home is
>fine. There's no word on casualties yet, but from the looks of things,
>there almost had to be some.

Glad you made it out OK Jay.
Nature is really strange. I've seen 5 tornados and one really large
water spout (tornado on water) off Key West. lucky we normally don't
get the big tornados up here in Michigan, but there have been
exceptions such as the Beecher tornado (North Flint) back in the 50's.
We had a little f-1 go directly over our house a few years back and
most of the neighbors were running around their back yards trying to
catch the lawn furniture. My neighbor was chasing something and it
was like he ran into a wall. Then I heard a cracking and popping over
the wind noise and was surprised to see the tops coming out of the
trees behind the house and then spiraling up into the clouds. Then as
you describe it became still where I was standing, yet a 100 yards to
either side I could see small stuff flying around.

About 400 yards east it *screwed * the top half right out of a big Oak
tree, yet there was no damage to any homes. Still, about a half mile
to the south of us there was a down burst that left a mile and a half
of straight line wind damage.

There was another down burst right on the edge of 3BS which took out a
bunch of trees and went right down the taxiway in front of our hangar.
There was only one plane tied down in front of our hangar and it was
toast. It pulled the tie downs right out of the ground but one and
then proceeded to beat the plane on the ground. It put *shoulders* in
the wings where the struts attach.

If I can find the photos I'll send you some.

Again, congratulations on making it through in good shape.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

[Roger]

On 14 Apr 2006 04:14:20 -0700, "Denny" > wrote:

>Jay, glad you are OK, now let me beat you about the head and shoulders
>for going out in your car with a twister dancing across town <and you

And that's what I do every time there is a watch or warning. I jump
in the car and head out looking (*except* at night) One eye on the
road, one on the sky, and one looking for the nearest safety,
just-in-case.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

>knew it - and a convertible no less - jeez>...
>Anyway, like Jay Beckman, as a lifelong Michigan resident I can see,
>feel, and smell a tornado before it forms... I have up close and
>personal experience with being picked up by a twister in 1953... I
>survived and I'm not emotionally traumatized, but I am wary of those
>monsters Next time get your butt into a basement and stay there until
>it is all over...
>
>denny...

[Randy Aldous]

>There are a lot of stories like yours because that '81 tornado made a path
>right through BOTH cities, and a number of suburbs, too. It was a Saturday
>or Sunday afternoon.

Don't recall the year, but we were getting ready for a July 4th
"Show-n-Go" drag race/ car show weekend at Brainerd Int'l Raceway, just
north of Brainerd, MN.

(Obligatory aviation content: the raceway ("BIR") is also an airport
(MY55) see: http://www.airnav.com/airport/MY55 - the 1 mile long front
straight-away/ drag strip is the runway. Just be mindful of the ~3 foot
tall (came up to about mid-thigh on me, when I was working out there,
years ago,) solid concrete crash walls along both sides for the middle
1/2 mile or so. Gives a new meaning to "keep it on the center line.")

[we join our tonado story already in progress...]
I was out checking the PA system and what not as contestants were lined
up with their cars on/ in trailers, getting registered. Bright sun
shine, but some evil looking cloud off to the west/northwest, couldn't
see too far as the tree line gets in the way. Got word that a tornado
was on the ground (I know, its redundant, its not a tornado, until it
touches down) and had messed pretty severly with a campground to the
west. Tornado warning was issued and and we started around with the
ambulance warning people in the track's camp grounds to take cover.

We got back around to the entrance road and down on to the track with
the ambulances and fire truck hundled under the spectaor bridge
crossing the track, just as it came over the trees. This was before we
learned it was bad to be under bridges and such. We just shoved people
under and around the rigs and covered up best as we could. It went over
us, just off the end of the bridge and we were picking straw (crash
barriers on some parts of teh road course) and other debris out our
hair and clothes for some time after that. Still bright and sunny, you
could call it "isolated" almost, the cell was so small.

Got the people's fingers peeled off the running boards of the
ambulance, where they were hanging on with all they had and took off
around the track to check for injuries. Well, we were just a little too
eager and we had to slow down so we wouldn't over take the tornado.
They pull over about as well as some drivers do, in response to red
lights and siren. Anyway, no injuries found. Damage wasn't too bad,
porta-potties dumped over, several thousand feet of power/
communications lines down and poles snapped off or pushed over, and the
most amazing thing - In the long line of participants lined up to
register, which was just to the north of the bridge we hid under, was a
3/4 ton (?) pickup with a flatbed trailer hauling his show car,
attached. The pickup was perfectly fine, save for the trailer hitch was
twisted 180 degrees with the trailer and car still attached, only
upside down. I'll have to see if I still have any photos around.

The next day, Saturday, races were delayed until around lunch time, so
we could get the power back in action and some of the mess cleaned up.
But the souvenier vendors were not swayed, they showed up Sunday with
those little "tornado in a jar" thingies that you swirl around and form
a little whirlpool inside "I survived the BIR Twister" - sold out, if I
remember correctly. T-Shirts showed up at the next race.

Glad to hear all of you and yours are safe and more or less sound, Jay.
Always enjoy your write ups. You should do a book someday!

Randy

[Roger]

On Fri, 14 Apr 2006 09:12:59 -0700, "RST Engineering"
> wrote:

>Glad you and yours are safe. Earthquakes seem a minor nuisance compared to
>this.
>
Hye, if you are smart enough to build a house with a basement you can
hide from most tornados, but how do you hide from an earthquake?

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com
>Jim
>
>
>
>>
>> Downtown is a weird scene of utter pandemonium, combined with the
>> ambience of an all-night kegger. All the college kids -- 35,000 of
>> them -- are out partying, surveying the changed streetscape. The roof
>> of a gas station was lifted up, moved about six feet toward the street,
>> and then dropped back down, destroying everything inside. Cars are
>> upside down, and one was evidently sucked off the top of a six-story
>> parking ramp, and dropped into the street.
>

[Roger]

On 13 Apr 2006 22:06:51 -0700, "Jay Honeck" >
wrote:
Excellent write up Jay. You did a great job of conveying the sights
and feeling. Although the little old laybe tooling up the street made
me thing of flight 405<:-))

Stay safe,

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

[Eric Bartsch]

Jay,

Glad to hear you made it through the tornados ok. My family in town got
a close up view of them like you did. Fortunately neither of their
houses was within 2 miles of the path that went through near the
airport.

Good luck with the shingles (that's a large roof you have)

Eric
1959 Pilatus P-3 A-848
http://www.hometown.aol.com/bartscher/P3A848.html

[RST Engineering]

What's a basement?

{;-)


Jim

, if you are smart enough to build a house with a basement you can
> hide from most tornados, but how do you hide from an earthquake?
>

[Jim Burns]

In an airplane! :)
Jim

"Roger" > wrote in message
...
> Hye, if you are smart enough to build a house with a basement you can
> hide from most tornados, but how do you hide from an earthquake?
>
> Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
> (N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
> www.rogerhalstead.com
> >Jim
> >
> >
> >
> >>
> >> Downtown is a weird scene of utter pandemonium, combined with the
> >> ambience of an all-night kegger. All the college kids -- 35,000 of
> >> them -- are out partying, surveying the changed streetscape. The roof
> >> of a gas station was lifted up, moved about six feet toward the street,
> >> and then dropped back down, destroying everything inside. Cars are
> >> upside down, and one was evidently sucked off the top of a six-story
> >> parking ramp, and dropped into the street.
> >

[Ross]

Jay Honeck wrote:
> So I was at our airport commission meeting tonight when the tornado
> sirens went off. We had noticed the skies becoming black, but were all
> too wrapped up in talk of paving taxiways to pay much heed.
>
> The meeting abruptly adjourned with the sirens, and everyone tried to
> find the long-rumored basement in the terminal building. The second
> floor conference room, with its two-story windows overlooking the ramp
> (and facing West), just didn't seem like a good place to be, and we all
> ended up down in the boiler room.
>
> After a while we felt silly, and went up to the weather room, where we
> watched the storm developing on radar. When it looked like the worst
> was past, I called Mary and made a mad dash for the convertible (thank
> goodness I had put the top up!) through moderate rain. Strangely, she
> said that if I didn't leave right away, to wait 15 minutes, because the
> worst was yet to come -- which didn't fit my radar picture at all.
>
> Well, apparently the TV station's "Live Doppler Radar" is a better
> information source than the airport version. Heading toward home, the
> hail began. Within seconds it sounded like machine-gun fire, and I
> quickly drove underneath a gas station's canopy with a few other
> hapless motorists. For the next ten minutes, we watched as
> ping-pong-ball-sized hail bombarded Iowa City. The flags were straight
> out, the wind was howling, and the temperature was almost hot. It was
> very weird, and I flipped on a local AM radio station that was
> interviewing a guy maybe a mile away from me, talking to them on his
> cell phone.
>
> Suddenly, the flag in front of me dropped straight down. The hail
> continued for a minute, but the wind absolutely died. Then it was just
> rain -- and then it stopped, too. I was wondering what the hell was
> going on, when the guy on the radio suddenly said "Oh my God, there's a
> funnel cloud!" The announcer asked him where he was, and he said "On
> Benton Street!"
>
> I was on Muscatine Dr., maybe 3/4 of a mile away, facing away from it.
>
> My concern for hail damage instantly gone, I called Mary, who was down
> the basement of our home with our kids. I told her I was inbound, and
> to raise the garage door. I didn't want the power to go out and to be
> stuck outside with a tornado approaching. Racing toward home, flying
> down a tree-lined street that offered a limited view to the south, I
> glanced in the direction of the reported tornado when, in a flash of
> lighning I saw it.
>
> There was no way to judge scale or direction of travel, in that
> millisecond flash, but it was big. A giant, V-shaped funnel was
> looming over the city, and it couldn't have been six blocks away! In
> fact, for me to have been able to see it at all, over those trees, it
> was either 50 stories tall, or it was right on top of me!
>
> Suddenly endowed with the driving prowess of Mario Andretti, I punched
> the pedal to the floor. I glanced down and saw 70 mph in second gear,
> and told Mary to get back downstairs.
>
> Not wanting to look back, I slid to the last stop sign before my house.
> Incredibly, with the tornado sirens wailing, hail flying, constant
> lightning and high winds, and a funnel cloud bringing up the rear, an
> older woman was dutifully driving 25 mph up our road. I suspect all
> she saw of me was a candy-apple-red streak...
>
> At last down the basement, with a beer and the kids, we watched the
> Cedar Rapids newscasters going absolutely ballistic over the "severe
> weather" in nearby Iowa City. Only difference was, this time it was
> for real. Reports were soon coming in of damage on Riverside Drive --
> the road our hotel is on -- and of injuries inside the Menards nearby.
> (This the Menards I've visited nearly every day since we opened.)
>
> When they announced that all off-duty police and firemen were to report
> for duty, and that the Army National Guard were being called out, I
> knew we were seeing the real deal. I called my night manager, and got
> no answer. I then tried his cell phone, but he was busy holding the
> door to the airport building, which was at that moment trying to be
> sucked off its hinges. I told him to call me back after he got to
> safety.
>
> A few minutes later, he called. The storm was past, and he was out
> assessing damage, but the power was out, and everything was inky black.
> Best he could tell, the only damage was to the fence around our pool,
> which was down, a roof vent was gone, and a bunch of shingles were off.
> I told him I'd be right down.
>
> That was two hours ago. I took the highway south of town, and was able
> to get to the hotel fairly quickly, despite the stoplights being out.
> The hotel grounds are a shambles, with branches, shingles, leaves, and
> debris of all kinds literally everywhere, but it appears that we got
> off easy. Although we received wind damage to the roof, and the fence
> is toast, all of our trees survived, and no windows were blown out.
>
> This is almost unbelievable, as just a few blocks away are scenes of
> utter devastation. Menards is a shambles, and much of their building
> materials are scattered around town. Our airport commission
> president's Dodge dealership is gone. His cars are smashed flat, and
> his showroom is splinters, with the roof laying across part of
> Riverside Drive. We were at the meeting, huddled in the boiler room
> together, and now his business is gone.
>
> Down the road from us, our favorite Dairy Queen is simply gone. One of
> the signs is still there, but the store itself is just no longer there.
> And, being an 85 degree evening, there had to have been a bunch of
> employees in there when the storm hit.
>
> It's possible to draw a line from Menard's to the Dodge dealership,
> right through the Dairy Queen, and into downtown proper. It missed our
> hotel by a few hundred yards, at most.
>
> Downtown is a weird scene of utter pandemonium, combined with the
> ambience of an all-night kegger. All the college kids -- 35,000 of
> them -- are out partying, surveying the changed streetscape. The roof
> of a gas station was lifted up, moved about six feet toward the street,
> and then dropped back down, destroying everything inside. Cars are
> upside down, and one was evidently sucked off the top of a six-story
> parking ramp, and dropped into the street.
>
> It took my son and I an hour to drive the mile from the hotel to the
> eastern edge of downtown. Dozens of alarms are wailing, set off when
> hundreds (thousands?) of windows blew out. Rubble and debris are
> everywhere, with stop lights twisted around light poles, and dumpsters
> tossed into the road like tumbleweeds. Fire trucks, ambulances,
> police cars, front end loaders, and National Guard vehicles struggled
> to get through the devastation and traffic -- and all the while boom
> boxes were playing and the college kids were out taking pictures and
> video. Some idiots launched a few bottle rockets, and got the police
> riled up. Destroyed gas stations are cordoned off, in case of leaks,
> and they sure didn't need any fireworks setting off a conflagration.
>
> Eventually we made it out of the area, and were able to get home. Our
> garbage -- with six bags of leaves -- is sitting out front, absolutely
> unmoved. Not a blade of grass is out of place.
>
> Nature is amazing, and we were so very lucky. Our hangar and plane are
> unscathed, the hotel was just nicked a glancing blow, and our home is
> fine. There's no word on casualties yet, but from the looks of things,
> there almost had to be some.
> --
> Jay Honeck
> Iowa City, IA
> Pathfinder N56993
> www.AlexisParkInn.com
> "Your Aviation Destination"
>
Incredible!!! I have seen several tornadoes in my years. Except for
living in Boston for two years I have always been in the tornado belt.
Once in Kansas City, a tornado went through my brother in laws trailer
park. Demolished the one, two down from him, move the one next door off
the foundation, and didn't even touch his. Glad you are OK. But I think
I would rather live in areas with tornadoes than hurricanes.

Ross (in TX for 30 years)

--
Regards,

Ross
C-172F 180 hp
KSWI

[RST Engineering]

Ross, please, for those of us still on dialup, please don't quote the whole
article just to add a few lines of comment.

Jim


"Ross" > wrote in message
news:44U%f.6239$MU4.6126@trnddc03...
>>
> Incredible!!! I have seen several tornadoes in my years.

[Ross]

RST Engineering wrote:

> Ross, please, for those of us still on dialup, please don't quote the whole
> article just to add a few lines of comment.
>
> Jim

>
>
My mistake and I apologize. I switched from dial up to DSL several
months ago. I will not go back: 1.4Mbs is great.

Further the tornado stories. Many years ago I was traveling from on town
to another that my company had plants in (about 60 miles apart). I was
with my boss and we were discussing the terrible TX weather we were in
and listening to the radio on all of the bulletins. He said he wouldn't
even know what a wall cloud would look like. I suggested that the cloud
to our east sure would look like one to me. We rounded a curve and a
tornado had just gone through this little town not two minutes earlier.
Devastation everywhere. We were that close.

--
Regards,

Ross
C-172F 180 hp
KSWI

[john smith]

In article >,
Andrew Gideon > wrote:

> On Fri, 14 Apr 2006 14:12:50 +0000, Jose wrote:
>
> > So Jay, why aren't you a professional writer?
>
> Interesting, eh? He's been asked that question here (in one form or
> another) multiple times. Why hasn't some periodical knocked him on the
> head and dragged him to a work processor?

Writing for a living can be struggle.
Most writers must constantly be on the watch for potential ideas and
carry a notebook to record such discoveries.
Jay is fortunate in that the events he records are happenstances which
directly involve him in some manner. It helps that his jobs as an
innkeeper allow stories to come to him.

[gatt]

WOW, JAY! Loss for further words, except to say GLAD TO HEAR YOU MADE
IT and thanks for the rather exciting read.

Ironically, when the tornado was hitting you, my wife and I were watching a
cable documentary on tornadoes. Makes me wonder how may people in the
affected area were watching it when the tornado actually hit.

Anyway, glad you and your family were spared nature's fury!

-c



"Jay Honeck" > wrote in message
oups.com...
> So I was at our airport commission meeting tonight when the tornado
> sirens went off. We had noticed the skies becoming black, but were all
> too wrapped up in talk of paving taxiways to pay much heed.
>
> The meeting abruptly adjourned with the sirens, and everyone tried to
> find the long-rumored basement in the terminal building. The second
> floor conference room, with its two-story windows overlooking the ramp
> (and facing West), just didn't seem like a good place to be, and we all
> ended up down in the boiler room.
>
> After a while we felt silly, and went up to the weather room, where we
> watched the storm developing on radar. When it looked like the worst
> was past, I called Mary and made a mad dash for the convertible (thank
> goodness I had put the top up!) through moderate rain. Strangely, she
> said that if I didn't leave right away, to wait 15 minutes, because the
> worst was yet to come -- which didn't fit my radar picture at all.
>
> Well, apparently the TV station's "Live Doppler Radar" is a better
> information source than the airport version. Heading toward home, the
> hail began. Within seconds it sounded like machine-gun fire, and I
> quickly drove underneath a gas station's canopy with a few other
> hapless motorists. For the next ten minutes, we watched as
> ping-pong-ball-sized hail bombarded Iowa City. The flags were straight
> out, the wind was howling, and the temperature was almost hot. It was
> very weird, and I flipped on a local AM radio station that was
> interviewing a guy maybe a mile away from me, talking to them on his
> cell phone.
>
> Suddenly, the flag in front of me dropped straight down. The hail
> continued for a minute, but the wind absolutely died. Then it was just
> rain -- and then it stopped, too. I was wondering what the hell was
> going on, when the guy on the radio suddenly said "Oh my God, there's a
> funnel cloud!" The announcer asked him where he was, and he said "On
> Benton Street!"
>
> I was on Muscatine Dr., maybe 3/4 of a mile away, facing away from it.
>
> My concern for hail damage instantly gone, I called Mary, who was down
> the basement of our home with our kids. I told her I was inbound, and
> to raise the garage door. I didn't want the power to go out and to be
> stuck outside with a tornado approaching. Racing toward home, flying
> down a tree-lined street that offered a limited view to the south, I
> glanced in the direction of the reported tornado when, in a flash of
> lighning I saw it.
>
> There was no way to judge scale or direction of travel, in that
> millisecond flash, but it was big. A giant, V-shaped funnel was
> looming over the city, and it couldn't have been six blocks away! In
> fact, for me to have been able to see it at all, over those trees, it
> was either 50 stories tall, or it was right on top of me!
>
> Suddenly endowed with the driving prowess of Mario Andretti, I punched
> the pedal to the floor. I glanced down and saw 70 mph in second gear,
> and told Mary to get back downstairs.
>
> Not wanting to look back, I slid to the last stop sign before my house.
> Incredibly, with the tornado sirens wailing, hail flying, constant
> lightning and high winds, and a funnel cloud bringing up the rear, an
> older woman was dutifully driving 25 mph up our road. I suspect all
> she saw of me was a candy-apple-red streak...
>
> At last down the basement, with a beer and the kids, we watched the
> Cedar Rapids newscasters going absolutely ballistic over the "severe
> weather" in nearby Iowa City. Only difference was, this time it was
> for real. Reports were soon coming in of damage on Riverside Drive --
> the road our hotel is on -- and of injuries inside the Menards nearby.
> (This the Menards I've visited nearly every day since we opened.)
>
> When they announced that all off-duty police and firemen were to report
> for duty, and that the Army National Guard were being called out, I
> knew we were seeing the real deal. I called my night manager, and got
> no answer. I then tried his cell phone, but he was busy holding the
> door to the airport building, which was at that moment trying to be
> sucked off its hinges. I told him to call me back after he got to
> safety.
>
> A few minutes later, he called. The storm was past, and he was out
> assessing damage, but the power was out, and everything was inky black.
> Best he could tell, the only damage was to the fence around our pool,
> which was down, a roof vent was gone, and a bunch of shingles were off.
> I told him I'd be right down.
>
> That was two hours ago. I took the highway south of town, and was able
> to get to the hotel fairly quickly, despite the stoplights being out.
> The hotel grounds are a shambles, with branches, shingles, leaves, and
> debris of all kinds literally everywhere, but it appears that we got
> off easy. Although we received wind damage to the roof, and the fence
> is toast, all of our trees survived, and no windows were blown out.
>
> This is almost unbelievable, as just a few blocks away are scenes of
> utter devastation. Menards is a shambles, and much of their building
> materials are scattered around town. Our airport commission
> president's Dodge dealership is gone. His cars are smashed flat, and
> his showroom is splinters, with the roof laying across part of
> Riverside Drive. We were at the meeting, huddled in the boiler room
> together, and now his business is gone.
>
> Down the road from us, our favorite Dairy Queen is simply gone. One of
> the signs is still there, but the store itself is just no longer there.
> And, being an 85 degree evening, there had to have been a bunch of
> employees in there when the storm hit.
>
> It's possible to draw a line from Menard's to the Dodge dealership,
> right through the Dairy Queen, and into downtown proper. It missed our
> hotel by a few hundred yards, at most.
>
> Downtown is a weird scene of utter pandemonium, combined with the
> ambience of an all-night kegger. All the college kids -- 35,000 of
> them -- are out partying, surveying the changed streetscape. The roof
> of a gas station was lifted up, moved about six feet toward the street,
> and then dropped back down, destroying everything inside. Cars are
> upside down, and one was evidently sucked off the top of a six-story
> parking ramp, and dropped into the street.
>
> It took my son and I an hour to drive the mile from the hotel to the
> eastern edge of downtown. Dozens of alarms are wailing, set off when
> hundreds (thousands?) of windows blew out. Rubble and debris are
> everywhere, with stop lights twisted around light poles, and dumpsters
> tossed into the road like tumbleweeds. Fire trucks, ambulances,
> police cars, front end loaders, and National Guard vehicles struggled
> to get through the devastation and traffic -- and all the while boom
> boxes were playing and the college kids were out taking pictures and
> video. Some idiots launched a few bottle rockets, and got the police
> riled up. Destroyed gas stations are cordoned off, in case of leaks,
> and they sure didn't need any fireworks setting off a conflagration.
>
> Eventually we made it out of the area, and were able to get home. Our
> garbage -- with six bags of leaves -- is sitting out front, absolutely
> unmoved. Not a blade of grass is out of place.
>
> Nature is amazing, and we were so very lucky. Our hangar and plane are
> unscathed, the hotel was just nicked a glancing blow, and our home is
> fine. There's no word on casualties yet, but from the looks of things,
> there almost had to be some.
> --
> Jay Honeck
> Iowa City, IA
> Pathfinder N56993
> www.AlexisParkInn.com
> "Your Aviation Destination"
>

[Casey Wilson]

>> > So Jay, why aren't you a professional writer?
>>
>> Interesting, eh? He's been asked that question here (in one form or
>> another) multiple times. Why hasn't some periodical knocked him on the
>> head and dragged him to a work processor?
>
> Writing for a living can be struggle.
> Most writers must constantly be on the watch for potential ideas and
> carry a notebook to record such discoveries.
> Jay is fortunate in that the events he records are happenstances which
> directly involve him in some manner. It helps that his jobs as an
> innkeeper allow stories to come to him.

If you count being published and paid for it, Jay already fits the
category of professional writer.

The last response, by John S. is very astute. Most writers, myself included,
have those happenstances few and far between. The rest of the time our
writing is not nearly as much fun. More like a job. And not a well-paying
one either. The average annual income of a "professional" writer in
California is less than $7,000 per annum.

Go Fly!

Casey Wilson
Freelance Writer
and Photographer

[RST Engineering]

The additional pressure on a writer on deadline is to sit and wait for the
muse to hit with your editor on your case for being three days past
deadline. Sometimes I wish I was simply writing the textbook or service
manual and when it gets done, it gets done. I'd probably do a much better
job.

Jim

>
> The last response, by John S. is very astute. Most writers, myself
> included, have those happenstances few and far between. The rest of the
> time our writing is not nearly as much fun. More like a job. And not a
> well-paying one either. The average annual income of a "professional"
> writer in California is less than $7,000 per annum.

[Brock Boss]

Jay Honeck wrote:
> So I was at our airport commission meeting tonight when the tornado
> sirens went off. We had noticed the skies becoming black, but were all
> too wrapped up in talk of paving taxiways to pay much heed.
>

Hell of a story Jay. We here in Central IL had a taste of that same
storm system. Back home in Lincoln(KAAA - where the plane lives) a
tornado hit the North eastern part of the city which just so happens to
be where the airport is. I rode my motorcycle down there earlier
Thursday afternoon to check on the new canopy cover we had just bought.
The old windows in the 67 Hawk must not be sealed too tight anymore and
while sitting on the ramp it was taking in a tiny bit of water in the
baggage compartment. It was windy as all get out Thursday afternoon so
I tightened the cover and also made sure the tiedowns were tight. Good
thing too.
About 1:30am today I get a call from my aunt and uncle who live across
the road from the airport. After the storm had passed they went outside
to survey the damage and saw a fire truck with lights on over at the
airport. Knowing our plane was sitting out on the ramp they went over
to take a look. They called me to report that everything looked fine,
except our new cover had torn. We were the lucky ones. A Cessna 210
parked 4 spots down had been "moved" by mother nature across the
taxiway and ended a few feet away from a Huey on static display.
Incidentally the Huey's windshield was popped out on the pilot's side.
Dont know if something hit it and popped it out or what. It's possible
that the 210 may have hit it. Looks like the wind T was also picked up
off its pivot and set down beside it.
Anyways, the fire dept. was out there spraying foam on the 210 because
it was laying on the left wing and fuel was leaking. As I left the
airport today they were in the process of jacking the 210 up and
trailering it. Looks like the prop is bent, the left wing tip is bent
and busted up and it looks like the cowling is dented as well. The nose
gear looks to be broken as well. I've posted some pictures on my
website.
You can try this link:
http://www.brockboss.net/gallery/igallery.asp?d=\flying\april+06+storm+damage\&page

We're under a tornado watch right now.
Looks like summer 2006 might be a wild ride here in the midwest!

Brock Boss
SP - N3916R
KAAA

[Grumman-581]

In rec.aviation.piloting, "RST Engineering" wrote in message
.. .
> Ross, please, for those of us still on dialup, please don't quote the
whole
> article just to add a few lines of comment.

Good point, Jim... Now, if we can just get some of these folks to quit top
posting also...

[Jay Honeck]

> Hell of a story Jay. We here in Central IL had a taste of that same
> storm system.
<snip>
> We're under a tornado watch right now.
> Looks like summer 2006 might be a wild ride here in the midwest!

Great story, Brock.

I just got home from a looooong day of clean-up. We've got the hotel
looking as good as possible (except for the still-flattened pool fence
and missing roof shingles), but filled our dumpster with debris to do
it.

After picking up the big stuff, we had to rake the lawns to get the
little stuff. The sky must've been raining junk, to spread it so
thoroughly. I'm really glad the pool cover was still on, or we'd have
been digging the pool out, too.

We drove through the formerly closed "War Zones" on our way home. The
National Guard is still directing traffic in the hardest hit areas, and
it's still a mess -- but what a difference 24 hours makes! The
buildings are still smashed, but most of the debris and wrecked cars
that clogged all the roads and sidewalks have been hauled away. Now,
it looks more like a bunch of construction sites rather than the chaos
of last night.

Humans really are a resilient lot.

(BTW: Many thanks to everyone for the many notes of concern Mary and I
have received today. They meant a lot to us...)
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

[Roger]

On Fri, 14 Apr 2006 17:13:44 -0400, "Morgans"
> wrote:

>
>"RST Engineering" > wrote in message
.. .
>> What's a basement?
>>
>> {;-)
>>
>It's just like a swimming pool, with a house on top of it.

Particularly in the rainy season if your sump pump fails.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com
>
>There; does that give you _some_ frame of reference? <g>

[Morgans]

"Roger" > wrote

> Particularly in the rainy season if your sump pump fails.

Oooh, that hits way too close to home, in the house of my youth.
--
Jim in NC

[Jack Allison]

Wow...glad you guys are ok Jay. Thanks for posting the details. I
can't imagine what it must have been like...or is like at the moment
with the cleanup and folks sorting life out.


--
Jack Allison
PP-ASEL-Instrument Airplane
Arrow N2104T

"When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the Earth
with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there
you will always long to return"
- Leonardo Da Vinci

(Remove the obvious from address to reply via e-mail)

[Jack Allison]

Jay Honeck wrote:
>>Glad to hear you are all OK, and that the Inn and Atlas escaped damage.
>> Looking forward to the pre-OSH pool party.
>
>
> Heck, yeah -- the show must go on!
Yeah, would have really sucked if you were the one to have to cancel on
folks due to lack of a hotel :-) So, now you've got some show and tell
material for the party. "And here's where the BBQ went through the
fence...", etc, etc. All I'll have is an excuse for interested parties
to crawl under the plane and checkout some beefy looking new ribs on the
Arrow.


--
Jack Allison
PP-ASEL-Instrument Airplane
Arrow N2104T

"When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the Earth
with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there
you will always long to return"
- Leonardo Da Vinci

(Remove the obvious from address to reply via e-mail)

[Don Tuite]

On Fri, 14 Apr 2006 16:18:21 -0700, "RST Engineering"
> wrote:

>The additional pressure on a writer on deadline is to sit and wait for the
>muse to hit with your editor on your case for being three days past
>deadline. Sometimes I wish I was simply writing the textbook or service
>manual and when it gets done, it gets done. I'd probably do a much better
>job.

Nah. the problem with manuals is they're never done. It's rev this
and rev that until you're ready to puke. I did one on an HP
calculator once that I thought I'd never get done with.

Give me freelance technical articles any day. (Assuming you're being
paid by somebody besides the magazine. Unless you've got a regular
gig with the magazine, which is halfway decent.) There's a deadline,
they appear, and then, for better or worse, they're history.

Don

[Jay Honeck]

> Wow...glad you guys are ok Jay. Thanks for posting the details. I
> can't imagine what it must have been like...or is like at the moment
> with the cleanup and folks sorting life out.

The Governor has now declared a State of Emergency for Johnson County,
which was actually hit by FIVE tornadoes, two of which hit Iowa City,
according to the newspaper...

To see a bunch of pics, go to
http://www.press-citizen.com/apps/pbcs.dll/frontpage and click on P-C
and user photo galleries.

It's a humbling experience to see neighborhoods that look like they
were bombed...
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

[john smith]

In article . com>,
"Jay Honeck" > wrote:

> http://www.press-citizen.com/apps/pbcs.dll/frontpage

I like the one of the college kid carrying the traffic light back to his
dorm room.

[Morgans]

"Jay Honeck" > wrote
>
> It's a humbling experience to see neighborhoods that look like they
> were bombed...

Wow! You are one lucky sucker, to have missed that twister, by so little.
I'll add my "glad that you and family are all OK" also.

Any word on what number on the scale this twister was? I'm guessing F-3 or
F-4, from the looks of viewing a portion of the pictures. It could even go
F-5, I suppose.

I hope the whole country gets together, and sends lots of help your way.

Well, I'm sure you will be busy, for a good while. 100% occupancy at the
hotel will be a sure thing, for the foreseeable future, I guess.

Even though I lived in the Midwest (NW Ohio) for over 25 years, I never saw
anything like this in person. I'm only thankful, for that fact.
--
Jim in NC

[Montblack]

("Morgans" wrote)
> Any word on what number on the scale this twister was? I'm guessing F-3
> or F-4, from the looks of viewing a portion of the pictures. It could
> even go F-5, I suppose.


A wide F-3 would do that type of damage. You want to see an F-4? Check out
the Comfrey, MN Tornado of 1998. 3-28-1998 (4:30pm). That one still gives me
the willies.

F3 will splinter your house. F4 will wipe the slab clean of debris.

http://www.skywarn.ampr.org/98ma29.htm
Jay's Iowa City tornado damage looks like St Peter's damage from this same
March 1998 storm. Photo links scattered around this site.

http://www.gusties.org/cleanup/
St Peter, MN 1998 (F3)

http://www.sigmamaps.com/StPeter/stpindex.htm
March 28, 1998 (5:20 pm)

Here's mine last year. We hid our cars under a parking ramp that evening.
http://www.crh.noaa.gov/mpx/TornadoStats/Minnesota2005.php
Sept 21, 2005 Blaine-Coon Rapids
2 miles long, 50 yards wide path. (F2) Trees, roofs, sheds, signs, etc.

The Siren , WI tornado in 2001 was bad, too. Weather experts will rate the
tornado after studying the area during a walk around. The Siren tornado -
they kept moving the F number up, then down, then back up, then back down.
Don't recall what they settled on? Might be some politics going on - aid
money difference?


Montblack

[Jay Honeck]

> Any word on what number on the scale this twister was? I'm guessing F-3 or
> F-4, from the looks of viewing a portion of the pictures. It could even go
> F-5, I suppose.

Actually, they're calling it an F2. Actually, they're calling it TWO
F2s.

> Well, I'm sure you will be busy, for a good while. 100% occupancy at the
> hotel will be a sure thing, for the foreseeable future, I guess.

Strangely, it seems to be working just the opposite -- we are totally
DEAD. I've received a lot of calls from pre-existing reservations,
asking if we're still in business -- and I think a fair number of
people aren't calling, period, because they think Iowa City has been
wiped off the map...

:-(

Anyone want a suite, cheap? Fly on over -- the weather is GREAT!
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

[Gary Drescher]

Wow, you almost became a VFR-into-IMC casualty without even using an
aircraft. I'm glad everyone is ok!

--Gary

[JJS]

> It's a humbling experience to see neighborhoods that look like they
> were bombed...
> --
> Jay Honeck

Jay,

Thank the Lord you guys are okay. Everyone seems to have a tornado story. My wife lost her uncle in one.
Be thankful you live in the Midwest. I'll wager you are about to meet a bunch of good Samaritans and heroes.

Joe Schneider
N8437R



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[Jay Honeck]

> Wow, you almost became a VFR-into-IMC casualty without even using an
> aircraft. I'm glad everyone is ok!

Thanks, Gary. In fact, the tornado was closer to me than I thought it
was.

See this graphic:

http://web-server1.daily-iowan.uiowa.edu/extras/nadomapo.jpg

Blow it up to full-size (if it's not already), and check out Muscatine
Avenue on the right side of the map. That's where I was sitting, under
a gas station canopy, when the tornado came through.

Dang. It really *was* towering over me...
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

[Morgans]

"Jay Honeck" > wrote

> Strangely, it seems to be working just the opposite -- we are totally
> DEAD. I've received a lot of calls from pre-existing reservations,
> asking if we're still in business -- and I think a fair number of
> people aren't calling, period, because they think Iowa City has been
> wiped off the map...
>
I am totally surprised at that . I would think that there would be plenty
of people who had their houses make uninhabitable, and would be looking for
a place to stay for a couple months.
--
Jim in NC

[john smith]

In article >,
"RST Engineering" > wrote:

> >
> > Nah. the problem with manuals is they're never done. It's rev this
> > and rev that until you're ready to puke. I did one on an HP
> > calculator once that I thought I'd never get done with.

> That wasn't by some wild chance the HP-35, was it? I can kick myself six
> ways from Sunday for tossing mine when the batteries went dead after fifteen
> years.

I still have mine. Recommendations for replacement batteries?

[Don Tuite]

On Sat, 15 Apr 2006 08:31:28 -0700, "RST Engineering"
> wrote:


>That wasn't by some wild chance the HP-35, was it? I can kick myself six
>ways from Sunday for tossing mine when the batteries went dead after fifteen
>years.
>
It was some follow-on, circa 1981. HP-Corvallis was still called the
Watch and Calculator Division, and they had calculator variations for
every conceivable job. While the 35 was a K&E log-log duplex
deci-trig that took care of the mantissa for you, the later
calculators were a bundle of RPN keys in search of a function. A
manual comprised endless pages of button sequences. Aaarrrgh!

No, when the 35 came out, I was still in aerospace in LA, writing qual
test reports, and in one amusing moment, explaining the probable
reason the MB antenna for the F-something-or-other failed VSWR testing
in the temperature chamber, even though the company had never had
problems with prior versions of that antenna. After going back
through all the bluelines, I said it was probably because every
generation since the B-58 had been "qualified by similarity" to the
antenna in the Hustler, and that at some point in that evolution, the
cavity and radiator had been shortened to meet some earlier fighter's
form-factor requirement, and a slug-tuned capacitor had been added at
the top of the element to make it tune. The cap, of course, had a
substantial temperature coefficient, so it was no surprise that
resonance varied with temperature. I also asked why a MB antenna
needed a flat 1.1:1 VSWR across any temp range. I don't know how that
came out. I took off for Oregon before it got resolved.

>Um ... you come up with a fresh idea, a novel approach, design it, prototype
>it, debug it, write it up rough, polish it, take magazine quality photos
>and/or engineering drawings, do this every month for twelve years, and then
>do it again in 30 days. Don't get me wrong, I love writing for KP, but
>every so often I get into a tight little box that doesn't want to let me out
>and it is frustrating as hell.

Yes, your situation is different. Coming up with new stuff (and
sometimes making it work before one could write about it) was a trap I
got into when I was writing TAB books under contract. That problem was
complicated by TAB's policy at the time of not sending galley or page
proofs to authors for review. I hate it when the "j"s disappear from
my equations.

I finally fell into the trick of picking the brains of engineers who
are smarter than I am (they're easy to find) and writing about what
they had done better than they could. The engineers got the glory and
the magazines' small honoraria; I got anonymity and substantial checks
from the engineers' employers.

(To the ones who can also write and like to write and have the time, I
say, "Keep this. It's good." I hate it when somebody comes along and
screws up perfectly reasonable copy for no good reason.)

If anyone wants to know whether I ever wrote about aviation -- I once
got a check from Flying because I wrecked a Luscombe. The I Learned
About Flying From That piece was called, "The Judge Was a Pilot." It
does appear in one of the ILAFFT compilations that are now available
from TAB. (Royalties? I don't know. Maybe TAB made an effort to
contact me, but I had too many forwarding addresses. The amount
involved would be too piddly to worry about.)

I'm going on at this length because the subject line is "Writing
Professionally." I see from occasional postings that some people want
to know about that from a career standpoint.

Don

[john smith]

> Even though I lived in the Midwest (NW Ohio) for over 25 years, I never saw
> anything like this in person. I'm only thankful, for that fact.

I toured Xenia in 1974.
Reminiscent of a bombed out town from WWII.

[Dan Luke]

"Jay Honeck" wrote:

>
> Dang. It really *was* towering over me...

Glad you & yours are ok.

Have the weather boffins assigned an intensity category to this one?

--
Dan
C172RG at BFM

[john smith]

In article m>,
"Jay Honeck" > wrote:

> > Any word on what number on the scale this twister was? I'm guessing F-3 or
> > F-4, from the looks of viewing a portion of the pictures. It could even go
> > F-5, I suppose.
>
> Actually, they're calling it an F2. Actually, they're calling it TWO
> F2s.
>
> > Well, I'm sure you will be busy, for a good while. 100% occupancy at the
> > hotel will be a sure thing, for the foreseeable future, I guess.
>
> Strangely, it seems to be working just the opposite -- we are totally
> DEAD. I've received a lot of calls from pre-existing reservations,
> asking if we're still in business -- and I think a fair number of
> people aren't calling, period, because they think Iowa City has been
> wiped off the map...

Start contacting the insurance adjusters and let them know what you have
available.

[Matt Barrow]

"Jay Honeck" > wrote in message
oups.com...
>> Wow...glad you guys are ok Jay. Thanks for posting the details. I
>> can't imagine what it must have been like...or is like at the moment
>> with the cleanup and folks sorting life out.
>
> The Governor has now declared a State of Emergency for Johnson County,
> which was actually hit by FIVE tornadoes, two of which hit Iowa City,
> according to the newspaper...
>
> To see a bunch of pics, go to
> http://www.press-citizen.com/apps/pbcs.dll/frontpage and click on P-C
> and user photo galleries.
>
> It's a humbling experience to see neighborhoods that look like they
> were bombed...
> --

So when is FEMA going to deliver your $6million?

[Judah]

Hi Jay!
That's terrible news! I'm glad to hear you and your family are OK. Sorry
to hear that you and so many of your friends and neighbors were hit so
hard...

Our thoughts and prayers go out to everyone there.


"Jay Honeck" > wrote in news:1144991211.918555.250210
@i40g2000cwc.googlegroups.com:

> So I was at our airport commission meeting tonight when the tornado
> sirens went off. We had noticed the skies becoming black, but were

<snip>

> Nature is amazing, and we were so very lucky. Our hangar and plane are
> unscathed, the hotel was just nicked a glancing blow, and our home is
> fine. There's no word on casualties yet, but from the looks of things,
> there almost had to be some.
> --
> Jay Honeck
> Iowa City, IA
> Pathfinder N56993
> www.AlexisParkInn.com
> "Your Aviation Destination"

[Judah]

"Peter Duniho" > wrote in
:

> By the way, Mr. English Major:
>
> "Jay Honeck" > wrote in message
> oups.com...
>> [...]
>> It took my son and I...
>
> What's up with that?
>
>:p
>

Hey - I think he earned the right to misuse his pronouns. Or perhaps he
felt more Royal and as such intentionally chose to use the more refined,
but grammatically incorrect, "I" reference.

Either way, the rules of nature undoubtedly trump the rules of grammar!

[Jay Honeck]

> I am totally surprised at that . I would think that there would be plenty
> of people who had their houses make uninhabitable, and would be looking for
> a place to stay for a couple months.

Most of the lost housing was student housing. Big, older homes that
have been subdivided, or are rented by 15 college kids.

Since they were already basically mosh pits, the displaced kids simply
all go bed down in the next hovel down... They're not the kind to go
rent an aviation theme suite for a month or two.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

[Morgans]

"john smith" > wrote

> I toured Xenia in 1974.
> Reminiscent of a bombed out town from WWII.

I saw the town after they had cleared away all of the destruction.

It was strange to see blocks and blocks totally cleared of all structures,
in a path all of the way through town. Simply impossible to comprehend.
--
Jim in NC

[.Blueskies.]

"Jay Honeck" > wrote in message oups.com...
>> Wow...glad you guys are ok Jay. Thanks for posting the details. I
>> can't imagine what it must have been like...or is like at the moment
>> with the cleanup and folks sorting life out.
>
> The Governor has now declared a State of Emergency for Johnson County,
> which was actually hit by FIVE tornadoes, two of which hit Iowa City,
> according to the newspaper...
>
> To see a bunch of pics, go to
> http://www.press-citizen.com/apps/pbcs.dll/frontpage and click on P-C
> and user photo galleries.
>
> It's a humbling experience to see neighborhoods that look like they
> were bombed...
> --
> Jay Honeck
> Iowa City, IA
> Pathfinder N56993
> www.AlexisParkInn.com
> "Your Aviation Destination"
>



Cool ad...Green Castle Aero Club! http://www.greencastle-aeroclub.com/

[Jay Honeck]

> Cool ad...Green Castle Aero Club! http://www.greencastle-aeroclub.com/

This wonderful little airstrip/club was covered in AOPA Pilot last
year. It truly is "God's Own Aeroclub", and I regret that we live too
far away from it for us to join.

We put a bid in on the only on-field house at Green Castle last year,
but got out-bid.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

[.Blueskies.]

Where is the hotel on that map?



"Jay Honeck" > wrote in message oups.com...
>> Wow, you almost became a VFR-into-IMC casualty without even using an
>> aircraft. I'm glad everyone is ok!
>
> Thanks, Gary. In fact, the tornado was closer to me than I thought it
> was.
>
> See this graphic:
>
> http://web-server1.daily-iowan.uiowa.edu/extras/nadomapo.jpg
>
> Blow it up to full-size (if it's not already), and check out Muscatine
> Avenue on the right side of the map. That's where I was sitting, under
> a gas station canopy, when the tornado came through.
>
> Dang. It really *was* towering over me...
> --
> Jay Honeck
> Iowa City, IA
> Pathfinder N56993
> www.AlexisParkInn.com
> "Your Aviation Destination"
>

[Montblack]

(".Blueskies." wrote)
> Where is the hotel on that map?


Approx. 500-ft AGL on an eastward heading.


Montblack

[karl gruber]

Several vendors on Ebay sell them.

Karl
HP-55

"john smith" > wrote in message
...
> In article >,
> "RST Engineering" > wrote:
>
>> >
>> > Nah. the problem with manuals is they're never done. It's rev this
>> > and rev that until you're ready to puke. I did one on an HP
>> > calculator once that I thought I'd never get done with.
>
>> That wasn't by some wild chance the HP-35, was it? I can kick myself six
>> ways from Sunday for tossing mine when the batteries went dead after
>> fifteen
>> years.
>
> I still have mine. Recommendations for replacement batteries?

[karl gruber]

Here's one for $12
http://tinyurl.com/oavyq
Karl

"john smith" > wrote in message
...
> In article >,
> "RST Engineering" > wrote:
>
>> >
>> > Nah. the problem with manuals is they're never done. It's rev this
>> > and rev that until you're ready to puke. I did one on an HP
>> > calculator once that I thought I'd never get done with.
>
>> That wasn't by some wild chance the HP-35, was it? I can kick myself six
>> ways from Sunday for tossing mine when the batteries went dead after
>> fifteen
>> years.
>
> I still have mine. Recommendations for replacement batteries?

[Montblack]

("Jay Honeck" wrote)
>> Cool ad...Green Castle Aero Club! http://www.greencastle-aeroclub.com/
>
> This wonderful little airstrip/club was covered in AOPA Pilot last
> year. It truly is "God's Own Aeroclub", and I regret that we live too
> far away from it for us to join.
>
> We put a bid in on the only on-field house at Green Castle last year,
> but got out-bid.


It's only 15 miles from the Alexis Park Inn - most of that (70 mph) freeway.
Is a max distance clause a by-law for the club?

http://www.greencastle-aeroclub.com/location.htm
Is the house in this picture? Bummer on the out-bid!!!

Becca when she's older:
"So, were you an Air Force brat?"
"Kind of."

http://www.airnav.com/airport/IA24
AirNav


Montblack

[Bob Noel]

In article >,
".Blueskies." > wrote:

> Where is the hotel on that map?

Cowering behind the upper-right corner of the CLOSED sign
in the Dairy Queen picture inset (approximately).

--
Bob Noel
Looking for a sig the
lawyers will hate

[Skywise]

"Jay Honeck" > wrote in news:1145128952.466242.142470
@i39g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:

>> Wow, you almost became a VFR-into-IMC casualty without even using an
>> aircraft. I'm glad everyone is ok!
>
> Thanks, Gary. In fact, the tornado was closer to me than I thought it
> was.
>
> See this graphic:
>
> http://web-server1.daily-iowan.uiowa.edu/extras/nadomapo.jpg

My first thought upon seeing this graphic was, "Is that all
the bigger Iowa City is? It's just a little town!!!"

I guess I'm used to living in the LA area where I can drive
for hours and tens of miles and never 'leave' the city.

Brian
--
http://www.skywise711.com - Lasers, Seismology, Astronomy, Skepticism
Seismic FAQ: http://www.skywise711.com/SeismicFAQ/SeismicFAQ.html
Quake "predictions": http://www.skywise711.com/quakes/EQDB/index.html
Sed quis custodiet ipsos Custodes?

[Montblack]

("Skywise" wrote)
> I guess I'm used to living in the LA area where I can drive for hours and
> tens of miles and never 'leave' the city.



We were surprised how big San Antonio is. It's as if you took everything,
suburbs too, in the Twin Cities and rolled them all into one city. San
Antonio isn't as big as the Twin Cities metro area but the idea is the same.


Montblack

[Grumman-581]

"Skywise" > wrote in message
...
> My first thought upon seeing this graphic was, "Is that all
> the bigger Iowa City is? It's just a little town!!!"
>
> I guess I'm used to living in the LA area where I can drive
> for hours and tens of miles and never 'leave' the city.

Awh, come on, it's IOWA, what did you expect? I was up there awhile back on
a contract for Rockwell Collins and got to experience it for 6 months... I
was in Cedar Rapids, a short drive north of there... Other than the various
widely seperated small towns, you will find lots and lots of corn fields,
interspersed with an occasional bean field... And not a decent BBQ joint in
the entire state, of course...

[Jack Allison]

Jay Honeck wrote:
> Trust me, I felt pretty stupid, especially after Mary told me not to
> leave because one of several tornadoes were approaching.
>
> Trouble was, I seriously thought that I had the superior weather
> instrument, being in the weather room at the airport. The radar there
> was showing that the worst of the storm had passed.
>
> I won't make that mistake again.

Phew, for a minute, I thought you were going to say you were looking at
Pilot Mycast on your cell phone. I have this strange dream where you're
showing this to a bunch of us, we're in a nice restaurant (under a
Tornado watch), we're done with dinner and walking back to
camp...when...wham, instantly soaked. Poof, then I wake up in a cold
sweat...no, wait, it's not sweat, it's a tent dripping on me :-)

Seriously though Jay, very interesting the difference in what you were
seeing vs. what Mary was seeing.

--
Jack Allison
PP-ASEL-Instrument Airplane
Arrow N2104T

"When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the Earth
with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there
you will always long to return"
- Leonardo Da Vinci

(Remove the obvious from address to reply via e-mail)

[Jay Honeck]

> Phew, for a minute, I thought you were going to say you were looking at
> Pilot Mycast on your cell phone. I have this strange dream where you're
> showing this to a bunch of us, we're in a nice restaurant (under a
> Tornado watch), we're done with dinner and walking back to
> camp...when...wham, instantly soaked. Poof, then I wake up in a cold
> sweat...no, wait, it's not sweat, it's a tent dripping on me :-)

Man, that WAS a storm, no? Actually with much harder rain than this
tornado produced.

(Thankfully, no hail in *that* one, or we -- and a billion dollars
worth of planes parked at OSH -- would have been toast! Can you
imagine how much the insurance adjusters must sweat during OSH week?)
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

[Jay Honeck]

> It's only 15 miles from the Alexis Park Inn - most of that (70 mph) freeway.
> Is a max distance clause a by-law for the club?

Yeah, but the important thing is distance from our home. It's over 30
minutes away, which is JUST beyond what we're willing to drive for an
after dinner, spur-of-the-moment flight.

> http://www.greencastle-aeroclub.com/location.htm
> Is the house in this picture? Bummer on the out-bid!!!

See the fir trees in the upper center/left? It's the house nearest
those, just a smidge down and to the right.

The house itself is gorgeous. Unfortunately, it was repossessed by the
bank during a VERY bitter divorce, and the "wronged woman" took out her
wrath on the house. She took light fixtures, built-in wall appliances
-- even the toilets and the central air conditioning!! The house was
just a shell.

Then, to make matters worse, the sellers over-priced it (by, like,
100%!), so no one would even bid on the place. It sat vacant for years
as a result. When the bank eventually repo'd it, the former owners
were long gone, had left windows open, and (worst of all) had not left
a dehumidifier running in the beautifully finished basement.

There was thick mold up to shoulder height throughout, and insect
carapaces so thick (after the winter killed them) that it was like
walking on popcorn.

That house would have taken $20K worth of refurb, so we low-balled our
bid -- and got beat. We were in Nashville (on our way to Sun N Fun
'04) when we got the word that we'd been out-bid -- and we have never
been so relieved in our lives! It was for the best, since we really
did not have time or resources for ANOTHER project, in addition to the
hotel rehab...

Still, to wake up on your own air strip is every pilots dream...
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

[Jay Honeck]

> Where is the hotel on that map?

Find the approach end of Rwy 25 (it's covered with a text box). We're
just north of it.

Closest structures badly damaged were Wal-Mart and Menards to the west,
and Hartwig Dodge and Dairy Queen to our north.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

[Jay Honeck]

> My first thought upon seeing this graphic was, "Is that all
> the bigger Iowa City is? It's just a little town!!!"
>
> I guess I'm used to living in the LA area where I can drive
> for hours and tens of miles and never 'leave' the city.

I'm sorry, Brian. Having lived in big cities, I really do feel for
you.

Nothing here is more than 15 minutes away -- yet we have EVERYTHING,
thanks to the University.

It truly is a marvelous place to live...for now. (It's growing so
fast, it's scary!)
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

[.Blueskies.]

"Skywise" > wrote in message ...
>
> My first thought upon seeing this graphic was, "Is that all
> the bigger Iowa City is? It's just a little town!!!"
>
> I guess I'm used to living in the LA area where I can drive
> for hours and tens of miles and never 'leave' the city.
>
> Brian
> --
> http://www.skywise711.com - Lasers, Seismology, Astronomy, Skepticism
> Seismic FAQ: http://www.skywise711.com/SeismicFAQ/SeismicFAQ.html
> Quake "predictions": http://www.skywise711.com/quakes/EQDB/index.html
> Sed quis custodiet ipsos Custodes?

We have acclimated so much that a 45 minute drive up to Grand Rapids is a really big deal - never used though much of
driving an hour down to LA to go to the Getty or something similar. Living in the midwest does sort of shrink the world
view, at least as far as driving is concerned....

[Jack Allison]

Jay Honeck wrote:

> Man, that WAS a storm, no? Actually with much harder rain than this
> tornado produced.

Ah yes, the Oshkosh memories. That night will be recounted for
generations to come...I can just hear the embellishments..."There we
were, strolling back from the Charcoal pit when, wham! Rain, hail,
*and* a funnel cloud were seen. Amazingly, the hail missed the N-40.
The ultralights, however, were creamed. And the twister managed to take
out the Hilton...wiped it clean off the foundation, creating a perfect
spot for the Alexis Park Inn & Suites of Oshkosh."

--
Jack Allison
PP-ASEL-Instrument Airplane
Arrow N2104T

"When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the Earth
with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there
you will always long to return"
- Leonardo Da Vinci

(Remove the obvious from address to reply via e-mail)

[john smith]

> Jay Honeck wrote:
> > Trust me, I felt pretty stupid, especially after Mary told me not to
> > leave because one of several tornadoes were approaching.
> > Trouble was, I seriously thought that I had the superior weather
> > instrument, being in the weather room at the airport. The radar there
> > was showing that the worst of the storm had passed.
> > I won't make that mistake again.

In article >,
Jack Allison > wrote:
> Phew, for a minute, I thought you were going to say you were looking at
> Pilot Mycast on your cell phone. I have this strange dream where you're
> showing this to a bunch of us, we're in a nice restaurant (under a
> Tornado watch), we're done with dinner and walking back to
> camp...when...wham, instantly soaked. Poof, then I wake up in a cold
> sweat...no, wait, it's not sweat, it's a tent dripping on me :-)

Jack, your dream sounds incredibly like AirVenture 2005!
In my version, I believe you were in the pizza joint across the road
while Laurence and I were enjoying a fine meal at the Hilton while the
rain was sheeting the western windows. It stopped raining long enough
for us to saunter back to our campsite and retire to our respective
tents.
Shortly thereafter, the wind and rain returned. It is the only time I
have watched wind driven rain force its way through the interlocked
teeth of a closed zipper.
Yes, I stayed dry, but I didn't get to sleep until the storm blew
through.

[Jack Allison]

john smith wrote:

> Jack, your dream sounds incredibly like AirVenture 2005!
You could be onto something there.

> In my version, I believe you were in the pizza joint across the road
> while Laurence and I were enjoying a fine meal at the Hilton while the
> rain was sheeting the western windows.
Hmmmm, the more times I have this dream, the more it seems like it was
the Charcoal Pit. Something about beer, steak, more beer... :-P

It stopped raining long enough
> for us to saunter back to our campsite and retire to our respective
> tents.

I think this makes you the official OSH dinner weather consultant. We
were soaked in less than five seconds. In my nightmare, there was this
wall of water, gale force winds, and the sound of Jay laughing. Well,
ok, the sound of lots of people laughing.



--
Jack Allison
PP-ASEL-Instrument Airplane
Arrow N2104T

"When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the Earth
with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there
you will always long to return"
- Leonardo Da Vinci

(Remove the obvious from address to reply via e-mail)

[Morgans]

"Jay Honeck" > wrote
>
> Man, that WAS a storm, no? Actually with much harder rain than this
> tornado produced.
>
> (Thankfully, no hail in *that* one, or we -- and a billion dollars
> worth of planes parked at OSH -- would have been toast! Can you
> imagine how much the insurance adjusters must sweat during OSH week?)

Was this the '05 storm, you are talking about?
--
Jim in NC

[Jay Honeck]

> > (Thankfully, no hail in *that* one, or we -- and a billion dollars
> > worth of planes parked at OSH -- would have been toast! Can you
> > imagine how much the insurance adjusters must sweat during OSH week?)
>
> Was this the '05 storm, you are talking about?

Yep. We (Jack, Steve, Montblack, et al) got caught in the torrential
downpour midway between the bar and our tent.

It was raining so hard, I couldn't run in my sandals -- the water kept
getting between my feet, and the soles of the sandals, and it was like
running on marbles...

Once in the tent we were fine, up high on our big, queen-sized
inflatable mattress. The kids, however, were down "in the valleys" and
spent a miserable night laying in puddles. This year, they've got
their OWN inflatable mattresses...

:-)
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

[Morgans]

"Jay Honeck" > wrote

> Once in the tent we were fine, up high on our big, queen-sized
> inflatable mattress.

BTDT

The kids, however, were down "in the valleys" and
> spent a miserable night laying in puddles.

DTDT, too.

Last year, the mini-van was high and dry, *and* had no transmission
problems. <g> The worst I saw was a rather loud and violent flogging of my
front porch tarp.
--
Jim in NC

[john smith]

> Once in the tent we were fine, up high on our big, queen-sized
> inflatable mattress. The kids, however, were down "in the valleys" and
> spent a miserable night laying in puddles. This year, they've got
> their OWN inflatable mattresses...
> :-)

Do those come with their own paddles?

[Montblack]

("Jay Honeck" wrote)
>> Was this the '05 storm, you are talking about?

> Yep. We (Jack, Steve, Montblack, et al) got caught in the torrential
> downpour midway between the bar and our tent.


NOT Montblack on that particular foraging expedition.

I was back at the Circle R Campground quickly trying to get the
Hotel-Minivan ready for the night. I closed the "hatch" just as the rain
blew through.

I ended up comfortably high and dry that night - listening to the gentle
sounds that sheets of rain make when impacting a minivan's roof ...for
hours, and hours, and hours. Campground rain gauge read 5 inches the next
morning.


Montblack
http://www.circle-r-camp.com/
They do need a temporary outdoor shower set-up during OSH. I'd use it. (Cool
water, 60-70F "on demand" water heater). They only have three shower stalls
for men - in the entire campground! My only squawk about the place. The
shower line starts at 6:00 am. Not good.

[Matt Barrow]

"Jack Allison" > wrote in message
...
> Jay Honeck wrote:
>> I won't make that mistake again.
>
> Phew, for a minute, I thought you were going to say you were looking at
> Pilot Mycast on your cell phone. I have this strange dream where you're
> showing this to a bunch of us, we're in a nice restaurant (under a Tornado
> watch), we're done with dinner and walking back to camp...when...wham,
> instantly soaked. Poof, then I wake up in a cold sweat...no, wait, it's
> not sweat, it's a tent dripping on me :-)

In May, 2001, my family and I were sitting in a restaurant in Lorton,
Virginia, for dinner during a vacation. From our table I could see the TV in
the bar area, and there was a Tornado Warning being broadcast.

From what I could gather of the map, it seemed it was RIGHT HERE. No one in
the restaurant was making any bones about it. So I was guessing, well, maybe
it was not _that_ close to us.

While eating our crab (of course, it was Virginia) appetizer, I heard the
unmistakable sound of a train. Remembering the old adage I'd heard in my
youth about the noise it makes. I jumped up and got ready to head for the
basement, but noticed no one else was making a scene (like the Yankee...me).

A few seconds later I heard the ding...ding...ding from the crossing, and
looking outside, realized the train station was across the street on the
other side of the restaurant from which we'd entered.


--
Matt
---------------------
Matthew W. Barrow
Site-Fill Homes, LLC.
Montrose, CO

[Jay Honeck]

> They do need a temporary outdoor shower set-up during OSH. I'd use it. (Cool
> water, 60-70F "on demand" water heater). They only have three shower stalls
> for men - in the entire campground! My only squawk about the place. The
> shower line starts at 6:00 am. Not good.

THREE shower stalls for that whole campground???

Man, that sucks. At OSH, a daily shower is NOT optional...
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

[Jose]

> THREE shower stalls for that whole campground???
>
> Man, that sucks. At OSH, a daily shower is NOT optional...

Sun-n-fun does much better. They have =permanent= showers, with lots of
hot water.

Jose
--
The price of freedom is... well... freedom.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

[Jay Honeck]

> > Man, that sucks. At OSH, a daily shower is NOT optional...
>
> Sun-n-fun does much better. They have =permanent= showers, with lots of
> hot water.

In the fly-in camping area (AKA: The North 40) there are plenty of
showers. We all cruise them pretty quickly, no lines, no waiting.

Montblack is talking about a shortage in Camp Scholler, the drive-in
camping area.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

[gyoung]

Ah, I think he is a professional writer, evident in the quality - he
just doesn't get paid for it.

Thanks, Jay, for another great story. And I join the others in saying -
glad you and your family are OK, the Inn intact, and Atlas is still
airworthy.

george

Jose wrote:
> So Jay, why aren't you a professional writer?
>
> Jose

[Montblack]

("Jay Honeck" wrote)
> Montblack is talking about a shortage in Camp Scholler, the drive-in
> camping area.


Not Camp Scholler.

http://www.circle-r-camp.com/
Circle R Campground

http://www.circle-r-camp.com/html/map.html
Layout

Approx. one mile south (maybe two) of the ultralight pasture.
http://www.circle-r-camp.com/html/directions.html
Directions

Like I said: nice campground, good rates, convenient campground store, flush
toilets here and there, laundry room, pleasant owners, fantastic (1967)
campground playground, idyllic farm setting with corn growing all around you
....and three shower stalls.


Montblack
Staying in the dorms this year.

[Jack Allison]

Montblack wrote:

> Not Camp Scholler.

First you're at the Charcoal Pit, now you're camping at Scholler. If
Jay keeps at it, you'll have been camped next to all of us in your
(future) Ercoupe. :-)


--
Jack Allison
PP-ASEL-Instrument Airplane
Arrow N2104T

"When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the Earth
with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there
you will always long to return"
- Leonardo Da Vinci

(Remove the obvious from address to reply via e-mail)

[Jay Honeck]

> > Not Camp Scholler.
>
> First you're at the Charcoal Pit, now you're camping at Scholler. If
> Jay keeps at it, you'll have been camped next to all of us in your
> (future) Ercoupe. :-)

Who *is* this "Montblack" fellow, anyway??

;-)

It is kinda funny how all of my Oshkosh memories are blending together.
They're becoming one big, happy blur, separated by intense points of
experience...

....like that downpour
....and Space Ship One
....and Concorde
....and meeting Jimmy Doolittle
....and Paul Tibbets
....and seeing Voyager fly over
....and seeing the F-117 for the first time
....and hearing Neil Armstrong
....and Burt Rutan
....and all those terrific Jim Weir forums
....and all those warbirds shows
....and...so many things!
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

[Jay Honeck]

> Glad you & yours are ok.
>
> Have the weather boffins assigned an intensity category to this one?

Whoa. The latest from the NWS is that we were hit by FIVE tornadoes. I
guess I only saw 1/5th of them.

They have now confirmed the touchdown point of the biggest tornado (the
one that buzzed right through the U of Iowa campus, causing millions of
dollars in damage, and injuring 30 people) as being at the corner of
Hwy 1 and Riverside Drive.

If you have a good arm, you can hit that spot with a baseball, standing
in our parking lot. And it's 1/4 mile from our hangar.

We were incredibly lucky.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

[Jack Allison]

Jay Honeck wrote:
>
> Who *is* this "Montblack" fellow, anyway??
>
> ;-)

A legend in his own mind :-) Oh...I mean, most excellent supplier of
camping gear to the useful load impaired.


--
Jack Allison
PP-ASEL-Instrument Airplane
Arrow N2104T

"When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the Earth
with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there
you will always long to return"
- Leonardo Da Vinci

(Remove the obvious from address to reply via e-mail)

[Montblack]

("Jack Allison" wrote)
> Oh...I mean, most excellent supplier of camping gear to the useful load
> impaired.


What is your Arrow's useful load? More importantly, what are your fuel hops
going to be with seats full? Why yes, I mean ...with IFR reserves!!

BTW, we're waiting for OSH to get new pillows. Yup, you get them first (x4)
, then they're all ours. Margene has decided ....it's time.

[If you need to save a little room (x4) - we're getting them either way.
Holding off 'till OSH, that's all.]

Guests [visiting] means we get new towels, or microwave, or (Full size)
sheets and comforter set, or new patio chairs, or whatever - I simply nod
and go pick up what she tells me buy. :-)


> A legend in his own mind :-)

"Being John Montblackovich" (1999)

[Jay Honeck]

> Guests [visiting] means we get new towels, or microwave, or (Full size)
> sheets and comforter set, or new patio chairs, or whatever - I simply nod
> and go pick up what she tells me buy. :-)

I *thought* all that stuff looked pretty new at Thanksgiving! Sorry to
have cost you so much... ;-)

And our first movie night went well last night, although (strangely
enough) a bunch of people showed up AFTER the movie. Must be that
"free beer" thing?

:-)

And, of course, the women made me replay the volleyball scene with Tom
Cruise, Val Kilmer, et al, OVER and OVER and OVER...

;-)
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

[Montblack]

("Jay Honeck" wrote)
> I *thought* all that stuff looked pretty new at Thanksgiving! Sorry to
> have cost you so much... ;-)


We're STILL using the little microwave - didn't return it.

I think you gained 6#'s on you Vegas trip, IIRC, while only 4#'s on your
Thanksgiving (MOA Shopping) visit with us. Looking at the numbers it
occurred to me that, while 2#'s shy of the Vegas mark, we hold the #'s/day
edge over Las Vegas!

<http://www.alexisparkinn.com/Photogallery2/2005-Thanksgiving/sVikings%20Chocolate%20Milk%2011-05.jpg>

<http://www.alexisparkinn.com/Photogallery2/2005-Thanksgiving/sFamily%20at%20Vikings%20Store%20in%20MOA2%2011-05.jpg>
Oops, how'd that one get in there? <g>


> And, of course, the women made me replay the volleyball scene with Tom
> Cruise, Val Kilmer, et al, OVER and OVER and OVER...

As long as they didn't (ALSO) ask you to speed up the projector a little,
then slow it down, then speed it up really fast, then turn down the volume
so there's NO talking, then play it backwards - slowly, then do it all
again, OVER and OVER and OVER...


Montblack
(My cartoon bubble has a light bulb in it)

[john smith]

> > Who *is* this "Montblack" fellow, anyway??

> A legend in his own mind :-) Oh...I mean, most excellent supplier of
> camping gear to the useful load impaired.

Isn't that the definition of an "outfitter"?

[john smith]

In article >,
"Montblack" > wrote:

> I think you gained 6#'s on you Vegas trip, IIRC, while only 4#'s on your
> Thanksgiving (MOA Shopping) visit with us. Looking at the numbers it
> occurred to me that, while 2#'s shy of the Vegas mark, we hold the #'s/day
> edge over Las Vegas!

Interesting... one-quart of beer weighs two pounds.

[Steve A]

Montblack wrote:
> What is your Arrow's useful load? More importantly, what are your fuel
> hops going to be with seats full? Why yes, I mean ...with IFR reserves!!

Please keep in mind the copilot is not the one questioning Montblack's
outfitting capabilities here. :-)

[Chris]

"john smith" > wrote in message
...
> In article >,
> "Montblack" > wrote:
>
>> I think you gained 6#'s on you Vegas trip, IIRC, while only 4#'s on your
>> Thanksgiving (MOA Shopping) visit with us. Looking at the numbers it
>> occurred to me that, while 2#'s shy of the Vegas mark, we hold the
>> #'s/day
>> edge over Las Vegas!
>
> Interesting... one-quart of beer weighs two pounds.

That must be that famous American lite beer, a quart of our beer weighs 2
and a half pounds.

[Jay Honeck]

> I think you gained 6#'s on you Vegas trip, IIRC, while only 4#'s on your
> Thanksgiving (MOA Shopping) visit with us. Looking at the numbers it
> occurred to me that, while 2#'s shy of the Vegas mark, we hold the #'s/day
> edge over Las Vegas!

Hmmm. And I am PRECISELY ten pounds over the 175 pounds I want to be
at -- and was at, before visiting you, and going to Vegas with Jim.
Coincidence? I think not!

> <http://www.alexisparkinn.com/Photogallery2/2005-Thanksgiving/sFamily%20at%20Vikings%20Store%20in%20MOA2%2011-05.jpg>
> Oops, how'd that one get in there? <g>

I KNEW we shouldn't have posed for that shot! I just KNEW it!
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

[Jack Allison]

> And, of course, the women made me replay the volleyball scene with Tom
> Cruise, Val Kilmer, et al, OVER and OVER and OVER...
>
> ;-)

What about the opening 10 minutes? That's got to be the best part.
Heck, cut out the rest of the film, I could watch that over & over for
an hour or three...


--
Jack Allison
PP-ASEL-Instrument Airplane
Arrow N2104T

"When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the Earth
with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there
you will always long to return"
- Leonardo Da Vinci

(Remove the obvious from address to reply via e-mail)

[Jack Allison]

Montblack wrote:
> What is your Arrow's useful load? More importantly, what are your fuel
> hops going to be with seats full? Why yes, I mean ...with IFR reserves!!

Useful load is 983.8 lbs. With four seats full, we'll carry 36 gallons
(to the tabs) which means three hour legs in order to land with an
hour's worth reserves (my mandated fuel reserves, more than those
required by the FARs). For any IFR ops., it depends on the timeframe to
the destination + alternate + reserves...most likely around 2:30 for
time to destination + alternate and I'd still have (my) reserves
remaining. Until we get past Salt Lake, there's little chance we'd do
IFR flying though as much of the MEAs would require supplemental O2.
Dang rocks are just so high that by the time you add obstruction
clearance and nav. aid reception, you'd really want to be sucking on
bottled O2.

>
> BTW, we're waiting for OSH to get new pillows. Yup, you get them first
> (x4) , then they're all ours. Margene has decided ....it's time.

Oooooh, no lumpy ones, eh? Cooooooool! Still need to weigh a bunch of
stuff though. Will keep you posted on that front.


--
Jack Allison
PP-ASEL-Instrument Airplane
Arrow N2104T

"When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the Earth
with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there
you will always long to return"
- Leonardo Da Vinci

(Remove the obvious from address to reply via e-mail)

[Jack Allison]

Steve A wrote:

> Please keep in mind the copilot is not the one questioning Montblack's
> outfitting capabilities here. :-)
Oh sure, blame it on the PIC...or is that in the FARs somewhere? :-)


--
Jack Allison
PP-ASEL-Instrument Airplane
Arrow N2104T

"When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the Earth
with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there
you will always long to return"
- Leonardo Da Vinci

(Remove the obvious from address to reply via e-mail)

[Jim Burns]

Hey don't blame ME!! :) I didn't gain an ounce :)) hehe
Jim

"Jay Honeck" > wrote in message
oups.com...
> > I think you gained 6#'s on you Vegas trip, IIRC, while only 4#'s on your
> > Thanksgiving (MOA Shopping) visit with us. Looking at the numbers it
> > occurred to me that, while 2#'s shy of the Vegas mark, we hold the
#'s/day
> > edge over Las Vegas!
>
> Hmmm. And I am PRECISELY ten pounds over the 175 pounds I want to be
> at -- and was at, before visiting you, and going to Vegas with Jim.
> Coincidence? I think not!
>
> >
<http://www.alexisparkinn.com/Photogallery2/2005-Thanksgiving/sFamily%20at%2
0Vikings%20Store%20in%20MOA2%2011-05.jpg>
> > Oops, how'd that one get in there? <g>
>
> I KNEW we shouldn't have posed for that shot! I just KNEW it!
> --
> Jay Honeck
> Iowa City, IA
> Pathfinder N56993
> www.AlexisParkInn.com
> "Your Aviation Destination"
>

[Jim Burns]

Hmmm... ugly pictures running through my mind.... outfitter> one who designs
and supplies "outfits"

Next up... Montblack Designs help Jack and Steve on What Not to Wear!

ewww....

Jim

"john smith" > wrote in message
...
> > > Who *is* this "Montblack" fellow, anyway??
>
> > A legend in his own mind :-) Oh...I mean, most excellent supplier of
> > camping gear to the useful load impaired.
>
> Isn't that the definition of an "outfitter"?

[Jay Honeck]

> Hey don't blame ME!! :) I didn't gain an ounce :)) hehe
> Jim

Yeah, well, no fair jettisoning your meals overboard...

;-)
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

[john smith]

> Hmmm... ugly pictures running through my mind.... outfitter> one who designs
> and supplies "outfits"
> Next up... Montblack Designs help Jack and Steve on What Not to Wear!
> ewww....

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