We finished an early dinner in Amarillo last evening (05/18/2023) and were headed home after an afternoon of shopping.
We were in an area of Amarillo not totally familiar to me so I thought rather than wandering around until I figured out where I was, I would use the Google.
So, I touched the pad on my Google Maps screen that says “home.” The Google knows where we live. I haven’t decided yet if that’s a comforting thought, but I digress. Google Maps has gotten me home in the past, why would this evening be any different?
The place where we were parked was under some trees and we could not see to the North. As we left the parking lot and wound our way toward I40 (not the way I would normally have gone) I noticed the sky to the north, the direction we actually needed to go, was a really dark blue. It was the color of the curtains on the stage in the auditorium at old HHS.
As Google took us to I40 East I assumed it was taking us to the US 287 North exit, but no, we kept on going east.
I glanced at the North sky again, it was even bluer. (Is that even a word?) I assumed the best for my friend Google Maps and told myself and my wife with a note of confidence, “Google is taking us around that storm.”
Following the Google, we headed east and then slightly north. I wasn’t really worried as there are many ways to go to and from Amarillo and I’ve been on most of them in my day.
Then I started seeing groups of people living dangerously. At first, I didn’t realize what they were doing. Then after I saw a guy with a high dollar camera on a tripod I saw they were storm spotters and I noticed the menacingly bluer sky now added lightning to its repertoire.
There must have been five or six groups of these people in increasing numbers usually gathered around road intersections as Joyce and I continued northeast toward the place the Google calls home.
I just want to pause here to say these people were stupid, every single one of them.
Roads in the High Plains are more often than not accompanied by poles carrying electric power lines running parallel to the road. The power lines may be twenty or thirty feet above the ground. If you should happened to touch one of the electric lines you would die
Guess where all the stupid people were standing as they gathered to watch the increasingly severe storm? That’s right, directly under the power lines running parallel to the road.
Professionally as someone who was in the radio business and had to deal with radio towers and antennas, and who also served as an Oklahoma Volunteer Fireman, I have seen the damage lighting can do. As I write this, I realized I should have at least tried to warn them. “Do not watch a thunderstorm with lots of lightning while you stand under poles carrying electric power lines!” But I didn’t warn them. I don’t think the guy with the high-dollar camera with his tripod straddling the barbed-wire fence just a few feet below an electric power line was going to listen to me anyway.
Joyce and I continued northeast following our friend the Google.
Subsequently we found ourselves on many roads I had never been on. There was no one else on any of these roads. In the fading light, the blue curtain of the storm was on our left, we kept on going. We were going around it.
After some time, Joyce said, “That sign back there said the road is closed and there is a bridge out.” But I could see the road continued and told her that if the Google could keep us from getting caught in that really bad storm immediately north of Amarillo on our usual path, it would surely know if there was a bridge out in the middle of the Texas Panhandle.
A bridge was out! And if the Google knew about it, they didn’t tell us.
I would soon be proven wrong.
You will be glad to know we made it safely home. Those of you familiar with the area will appreciate that we finally started seeing signs of civilization south of Hardesty. And turned west there for the last 18 miles to home on roads we recognized.
There are two morals to my story. And you thought I would never get here didn’t you?
- Don’t completely trust the Google.
- Don’t watch a storm while standing under power lines.
As you travel to Amarillo on the Normal route on US 287 you cross the North Canadian River, always just a trickle. According to KVII TV, it’s at flood stage this morning at levels not seen for 27 years. So, we missed the big rain and the assorted hail…and we have a story to tell.
Great story! I don’t think you have told us this one.
What you didn’t say is how you negotiated this bridge conundrum! Did you turn around and drive back by the crazies (and was there as many as there were a while ago)? Or, did you pull a Dukes of Hazard 😉 and jump the bridge? The bridge looks like that might be a possibility!
Actually, there is a steep trail taking you down to the dry riverbed and then back up the other side. Google Maps pictures of that location show the bridge collapsed and our “trail” under water. It is actually on the south end of Palo Duro Lake. Alls well that ends well someone once said.