ROCHELLE, Ill. — A driver traveling through northern Illinois came about as close as you can possibly get to a tornado without becoming a sad statistic in a harrowing encounter captured on video.
According to the video posted on YouTube by Aaron Rooney, the driver—identified only as “Sam S.”—was driving on Interstate 39 on Thursday evening when he happened upon the massive, wedge-shaped tornado barreling his direction.
Sam, who according to the video description is not a professional stormchaser and had never seen a tornado before, managed to get the incredibly close encounter—perhaps a couple of hundred feet away—with the twister on cell phone video.
The tornado, which killed two people in the town of Fairdale, Illinois, and left homes and buildings across the area flattened, was given a preliminary rating of EF-4 on the Enhanced Fujita Scale with winds of up to 200 mph.
NOTE: This man is extremely lucky to have survived. DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME!
