Chapter 7

CHAPTER 7 "It was Wednesday, April third, 1974," Dr. Gage began. "My eleventh birthday. I got a brand-new bike, and after school all I wanted to do was ride around town to show it off." Dr. Gage grew up in a small Alabama town called Jasper, with his parents and two little sisters. "Beautiful place. Quiet and friendly. A little like Joplin." The day was hot and very humid, not unusual for Alabama in the springtime. There were

thunderstorms forecast all around the South, up into Ohio. That wasn't so unusual, either. But there was nothing usual about these storms. They were supercells. While Dr. Gage was happily riding his bike along the peaceful streets of Jasper, storms were already unleashing tornadoes for hundreds of miles in every direction. Boom! A tornado touched down in Cleveland, Tennessee, destroying the entire downtown. Boom! Another took aim at Xenia, Ohio, wiping out a neighborhood of brick houses, destroying a high school, and killing thirty-two people. Boom, boom, boom! Tornadoes struck in Kentucky, Indiana, and Georgia. At five fifteen, the skies in Jasper grew suddenly dark, and it began to pour. "I figured it was just a thunderstorm. I was more worried about my bike getting rusty than

anything else." The town had no tornado siren, so Dr. Gage had no way of knowing that a massive, rain-wrapped tornado was heading right for him. "I pulled to the side of the road to wait out the storm. I waited there under a tree, thinking about the cake my mother was making for me. It started to hail, huge stones that pounded down. My ears started to pop like crazy. I didn't know that was a sign that a tornado was coming. The air pressure is so low inside a tornado that the sudden change in pressure makes your ears pop, like when you're in an airplane." Dex had never heard that. "And then there was a sound, like nothing I'd ever heard before. Most people say that a tornado sounds like a speeding freight train. But every tornado sounds different. This one was roaring and hissing, like some kind of snake. Stuff started flying through the air — leaves, branches, and

roof shingles. That's when I realized what was happening." "What did you do?" Dex asked. "There was a big ditch right at the side of the road. I dove in and wedged myself under the root of a huge tree, held on for dear life. I got pummeled pretty badly. A tractor came flying out of the sky, and crashed down about ten feet from me. The tree I had been standing under was ripped out of the ground. My arm got sliced by a hunk of steel pipe that hit me at one hundred fifty miles per hour." Dex shuddered. "But I was incredibly lucky," Dr. Gage said. "I made it. And so did my parents and my sisters. They rode out the storm in our basement. The house was pretty much destroyed. But we felt blessed. Twenty-three people in our town were killed, including two of my friends." It turned out that the EF-3 tornado that hit Jasper was part of what would become known as

the Super Outbreak of 1974. Over twenty-four hours, 148 tornadoes touched down in thirteen states. By the time the skies had cleared, more than 330 people were dead. "You'd think that after that, I'd stay as far away from tornadoes as I could. But I decided to learn everything about them. I became obsessed. The more we know about tornadoes, the better we will be able to predict when and where they'll hit. You know, last month, there was another super outbreak of tornadoes, all across the South. That's where Jimmy and Sara got caught. It was as bad as the one in 1974 — we lost three hundred twentyone people. So we haven't made much progress, Dex. We need a much better early warning system so that people aren't caught by surprise." Something in Dr. Gage's voice — a steely edge — reminded Dex of Jeremy, how he sounded when he talked about his missions. They were alike, Dex realized. Both were trying to make the world safer. But both were risking their lives.

Both were hunting killers. Dex wanted to know more about what had happened to Dr. Gage that day. But just then Dr. Gage pointed out the window at a whirl of thick gray clouds rushing in from the west. "There it is!" he exclaimed. It was their storm. The chase was on.