[NetBehaviour] Tornado!

Alan Sondheim sondheim at panix.com
Thu Oct 22 07:40:27 CEST 2020


Tornado!

http://www.alansondheim.org/tornado2.jpg
https://youtu.be/YFFncU3n77w  VIDEO
http://www.alansondheim.org/windshear.jpg spectrum of windshear

"Original in HD. There were tornado warnings in Brooklyn around 5
this afternoon - rotating cells were seen on radar. So it hit
around 5:20 and I went outside and shot this two minutes at the
height of it. We went out tonight as well - there are trees and
branches down all over the place as well as crushed cars and
stuff like skylights and ventilators that blew off rooftops. The
storm lasted maybe three minutes. As far as I know we have no
damage, but the place across the street had aluminum siding torn
off (you can see this in the video). We still have to go onto our
roof and check it out. I have a lot of very clear stills as well,
but this conveys what it felt like. The camera was completely
soaked but luckily still works!"

-- That was written then, this is now. I forget the year. The
video is reworked here. It includes previous footage of a wedding
and carpet as well. It was DV tape, high for the time. I had
heard a very small tornado had crossed Staten Island and was
headed down 4th-5th Avenue in Brooklyn. I grabbed the camera and
went outside. Everything was blowing everywhere. Parts of roofs
and signs were torn loose. Trees were down and cars were
destroyed. I held on to the bus stop, rounded the corner, and ran
into the storm. You couldn't see the funnel itself; it was over
us, but you could hear the sheer and feel the sudden change in
pressure. I never showed the proper footage; this is it, very
short - I was going to be blown away and the camera destroyed if
I stayed out longer. It was magnificent. I've been in a few
severe storms before and after, but this was the best because it
came through so fast, so dense. I'm speaking to someone saying
the storm is coming; I didn't realize it had already passed. I
love New York. I love the juxtapositions of worlds. Anyone out
there was _taken over entirely._ What more could you ask for? One
could write endlessly about that, the transparency and ghost-like
quality of the body under untoward circumstances; writing doesn't
do anything justice, the body disappearing into camera and mouth,
perhaps fingers and legs, everything _distant signals from the
world to a dissipated consciousness._ I long for this! I've been
out in bad hurricanes, blown over, in swarms of wind and water;
my powerlessness expands to fill the dark and grayed universe of
violent rain, hail and wind; I know, intimately, that we are all
always blown away, always on the verge of vanishing, to space and
time, to ourselves, to what remains of our ability to speak, say,
think, cry, move, bear witness as bare witness, of our ability to
disappear, once, finally, ourselves, everyone, everything, space
and time, neutrino.




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