Just out of curiosity (I don't live in an area likely to ever see a tornado), but I was once in Dallas, headed to Fort Worth (?) The sky was low, green and clouds were moving in multiple directions. I knew nature's shenanigans were afoot, so I turned on the radio and was told tornadoes were in the area and that I should "seek selter". There weren't a lot of structures, and at that time of day, none were open, so I parked under an overpass (which I was really lucky to find!).
What would an informed, reasonable person choose to do in that situation?
What you did.
I experienced a brush with a tornado back in 1986 and I remember the sky was very strange.
The clouds were twisting and rolling in long strands of clouds and they were going in opposite directions. It was like skeins of yarn being rolled against each other.
Clouds do do very strange things when a tornado is around.
You made the right move. I have a tornado video where some folks were caught out in the open like you were and sheltered under an underpass and the tornado went right over them as they hung on for dear life. A tornado chasing crew was with them and recorded the whole thing.
Very scary.
Quickly pull over, bring up a weather app on your smart phone, look at the radar track and proceed at right angles to the storm cells’ path at high speed, keeping an eye out for places to shelter.
Local news stations’ web broadcasting of storm coverage (in Dallas-Fort Worth anyway) is also something good to log into for this purpose.
so I parked under an overpass (which I was really lucky to find!).
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According to weather experts that’s the worst possible place to seek immediate shelter.
Growing up in Nebraska, we would run out to see how close they were before taking shelter. Dad would say “We have 30 minutes and 40 pigs to vaccinate. Get to work!”
Now the one time a tornado was heading to us, we beat feet to a safe location.
When you see them every summer, you stop being afraid of them.