These past few weeks have been quite rough, a rollercoaster from the deepest depths of poverty and isolation to isolation but in a nice car lol. I don’t mind being alone, but I often find myself overthinking in the silence, moving forward I have decided to be more social, actually embrace my friends instead of hiding from them. I’ve always been ashamed for them to see me like this, but at this point, I think isolation is doing more harm than good, on the surface I don’t mind being alone, but I think subconsciously there is harm being done. And besides, the research states that the biggest indicator of becoming wealthy is not necessarily what we know and what we do, but the environment we are in, the people we surround ourselves with, the culture we are apart of, and if anything I can see the slightest benefit being positive goal oriented people being themselves, and that attitude being infectious, it is a far cry from the environments I currently inhabit, regardless it is my own responsibility to pull myself up by my own bootstraps and meet these type of people on a level plane.

My week in Uber was a disaster

This week while operating on very slim margins, I was slammed by natural disasters hampering my ability to make money, I can handle a little rain, but tornados are another thing, especially when they touch down in my work zone and destroy infrastructure that is critical for me to be able to operate and make money.

I rented for a week, as after the rental period I will be housesitting for a friend in Arkansas, we have even been in the talks of my staying there instead of at my fathers during my down times from Uber. So check that one off the box of tropes you hear from those who supposedly went from rags to riches, I will be quite literally sleeping on his couch at night and hustling during the day. So if one day I do truly become wealthy, I got the receipts, the proof that I did indeed for a period of time sleep on someone else’s couch during the journey. A year and half of my life was spent at my fathers, after I lost it all, the living conditions as much as I am thankful he helped me, are nonexistent. Once my income is to a certain point, I will be paying him extra money for the rest of his life to fix up his conditions, it’s absolutely abhorrent, however we are both use to it, as I grew up in that environment.

my first day of work I planned on staying in my home state as I was not sure I had enough money in my bank account to make it to Dallas after renting the car for 7 days. I was also looking forward to visiting all the spots I use to haunt years ago during those long nights of Uber before I lost it all. To be honest, the best days of my life were 2019-2021 spent ubering in my town, it was a chill job that paid well, I had no life, but I had my car, YouTube and fast food for those hours that got slow, honestly it was pretty great, I could spend $100 in a single night on just fast food, always scraping by on my rent with the skin of my teeth. Unfortnately for me, there would be unprecedented storms this night.

The path of the tornado was heading directly towards my friends house in the town of Lowell, while on the phone with him I heard the tornado sirens kick on, he had to hang up to tend to his family. After some time working Uber I decided to head up north and check on them since he was not answering his phone, I assumed he was busy dealing with the matter at hand, one would be incredibly unlucky to take a direct hit from a tornado.

I drove northwards to check on him, as I drove I was pelted by rain and the already night sky turned pitch black, power was already off in the areas I was passing, the wind had picked up and lightning was striking sky to ground in close proximity. When I arrived to his neighborhood I was horrified to find fallen trees and branches littering the road, however I was thankful to see they were ok, the power was out for them and already tractors were out on the roads trying to remove tree branches. I attempted to Uber in the affected area, orders were coming in, it was difficult to deliver them at 2 in the morning, emergency vehicles were going to and fro, power was out, and entire roads were blocked my fallen trees. It got to a point I could no longer work, and I was satisfied with the money I had made to make it to Dallas Texas from northwest Arkansas, $160 in gas just to be safe, so I found a parking lot and slept a few hours in preparation for the drive to Dallas.

I had not quite made the money I wanted in Arkansas, but deemed I had enough for the trip to Dallas. The next day was sunny, and warm all the way down to Dallas, about a 5 hour drive from Northwest Arkansas. The day was rather uneventful, the car I was renting a turbo charged Nissan ultima was more than enough for the fast moving highways of Dallas Texas. As I worked I became weary, and had difficulty stating on the road, I stopped off at one of my favorite gas station food Marts in Dallas Texas, 24/7 tacos, ordered myself 5 beef tacos, pulled into an empty back lot to eat. I remember the night was hot and completely still, I felt myself falling asleep, so I removed my shoes and socks to improve circulation to my legs while sleeping in the car and I reclined my seat.

Hours later I awoke to the sound of tornado sirens, I was groggy and disoriented, this had completely come out of left field, there had been no indication of severe weather of any kind, the sirens blared around me, i knew i had minutes to react before the storm hit, as my friend in Arkansas told me they got hit 15 minutes after the tornado sirens started. I was in my car, hurridly putting on my socks and shoes and adjusting the car seat, the advice of the wise is to find shelter, but I am not wise, and further more I desire a certain sense of adventure and danger, so instead, I opened the website tornadohq.com which provided me with a live weather radar so I could see what was going on, and use the car to get out of the area to a town outside of the storm. Opening the website I could see rotation in my area, so I plotted my escape route to the south, I saw that my route to the highway would take me right into the rotation but I saw no other choice and with little time to think I went for it.

As I hurriedly drove west to make a connection to the interstate going south I was bothered by how slow people were driving, I did my best to remain patient, then the storm hit. A literal wall of rain and wind smashed into us, as though an ocean wave, instantly the streets begin to flood, ínstense lightning strikes all around, each flash revealing a green sky, a bizzare sight I was witnessing for the first time, but is often associated with tornados, not just a green sky but dark. In all the chaos I not only saw lightning strikes, but power flashes that at the time had me concerned was a tornado, the wind was so severe we might as well have been in one.

If a tornado was to spawn in these kinds of conditions, they are some of the most dangerous kind, not only a nighttime tornado but wrapped in wind and rain, at what point does it stop being strong gusts of wind and become rotational force of a powerful tornado? It’s impossible to know in these conditions until it is too late, I had foolishly set out to try and outrun the storm in an car and now it was directly on top of me. I was able to make it to the highway, but there would be no relief, the highways were flooding, the strong gusts of wind were nonstop a tornado could be anywhere on the ground, I put my flashers on. It’s at this point that I’m really thankful for the car I was in for this storm, had this been a Toyota Corolla or kia forte as what I often rent I would be forced to pull over and hope for the best. I would be a lier if I said as an agnostic I was not making pacts with god if he got me out of this, it was bad. Ever since starting Uber in 2018 I’ve crashed my car twice in snow and Ice, both times I was goofing around, I’ve since learned to respect snow and ice, I’ve experienced every kind of weather northwest Arkansas could throw at me, I’ve worked through many a tornado warning ignoring them, I’ve driven across flooding roads at night the water ever so gently tugging my wheels towards the dark flooded ditches, only to return to the same road 15 minutes later to see a river where a road once was. This was different, and tornados were confirmed on the ground, all I could do was race as quickly as possible southwards away from the storm, because the car was heavier I was able to maintain 50MPH, the knowledge that tornados were on the ground was compelling me to drive as fast as possible to get out of the storm. This was a situation where I very desperately needed a navigator in my passenger seat keeping an eye on the radar for me while I focused on the road.

As I drove I could hear tornado sirens swell up from exit after exit, at one point I lowered my window to catch the haunting sounds. Interestingly in the video above, the storm is very much ferocious, but is blowing from east to west allowing me to lower my window without baptizing myself. As I drove for an hour conditions began to worsen, at this point I was beyond frustrated, my nerves were frayed, it seemed like I could not get out of this storm, I reached a point in my destination where I could turn off the highway that was now taking me right back into the storm but to my horror at each exit I attempted, 5 to 6 cars were sheltering beneath the underpasses dooming all those around them to whatever it was they thought they were hiding from, I cursed them for being selfish cowards, I must say at the time my emotions were on edge as the highway was now taking me right back into fort worth and I towards potential tornados that would no doubt kill me if I was caught out in my car. I was finally able to exit the highway, however as I drove south on small country roads a new an obvious danger presented itself, flash floods. I drove uphill through a small town who’s main road had now become a roaring torrent of water, not wanting to hydrolock the car I made the decision to shelter the car behind a gas station and wait for the storm to pass.

In reflection

My attempt at outrunning a tornadic storm failed in the most epic way possibly, as i later realized the reason I was hearing tornado sirens for mile after mile down the highway south in my attempt to escape the weather system was because I was moving south with the rotation, tornado sirens only blare for a few minutes before shutting off, for me to hear them town after town meant I was moving with the storm, a truly epic fail. Had I sheltered or pulled off the roadway the storm would have passed, but instead I drove for what felt like hours praying inside what felt like a tornado.

Unfortnately what had happened in northwest Arkansas was repeated in Dallas on a much more vast scale, 600,000 people left without power, busy intersections with dead stoplights, entire sections of Dallas where I could not get a cellphone signal ( At&t) this was especially frustrating when I had decided it was time to depart Dallas for Austin Texas a mere three hours south to work instead, as working in Dallas would be impossible. Without cell service I could not find the highway, meant I was driving for 30 minutes in straight lines through traffic hoping to pick up a signal so I could get out of dodge. All the while my rental car payment is ticking away, and what was a hopeful week was materializing into a financial disaster.

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