The Worst Possible Night to Watch ‘Twister’ in Oklahoma

If there were a governing body of people that handed out oddball awards for, let's say, "Most Poorly Timed Movie Marathons," I'd probably walk away with a trophy today.

They say life imitates art, but last Friday, the boundary between the two completely vanished. Here's a wild coincidence for you to ponder.

If you're in Oklahoma, you know how last week went. Everyone was keeping an eye on the sky from Tuesday afternoon all the way through Saturday morning. Me especially. I'm doing some work in my little shed, so all of my tools and yard stuff are packed into my garage, making it useless for protecting my vehicle from the weather.

Tuesday and Wednesday came and went without much action. Some heavy rains, a little bit of wind, but otherwise gentle spring weather.

On Thursday, after an updated enhanced forecast, Western Oklahoma took a beating. A handful of large tornadoes exactly how the meteorologists said it would happen, even a few deaths.

As Friday rolled around, we were paying attention down in Lawton, and I'm guessing we all gave a similar sigh of relief to see the storms firing up east of here. After wrapping up the work week, I figured I'd get one more long Friday night of binge-watching in before Daylight Saving Time started.

Unfortunately, my pirate TV app was down all afternoon, so I was stuck watching commercials on a different app. It's all the movies I've already seen, but "Twister" caught my eye.

Epic movie

It was filmed in and around my hometown while I was growing up there, my mom was an extra while we were at school, and I was even Helen Hunt's paperboy since she was renting a tiny home in our neighborhood.

I was all in on reliving "Twister" for the millionth time.

It still holds up as a great movie based on the science of what's actually possible when all hail breaks loose. The sequel, "Twisters," was the recommended next movie to watch, so why not?

The sequel isn't as good. It is entertaining, if a little too much into the mindset of depression and trauma in the chaos of chasing twisters, but the science and physics are too unreal. To be fair, we're all collectively spoiled in the science of weather across the Sooner State. Perks of having non-stop live coverage anytime a storm spits out a funnel.

Here's the poor timing plot.

Unbeknownst to me, as I started looking for something else to watch, I did what we all do. Got bored and looked at my phone. Scrolling through the videos, some storm chasers caught my attention. They were doing their thing across Oklahoma, and that's when I realized Tulsa was about to get hit.

While News9 in OKC does a great job with tornado coverage, Tulsa might as well be New York City. I've never lived there, but I have heard good things about the New9 sister station, News6, but I couldn't tell. It could have been that their app was crashing due to traffic, but I couldn't even pull up their Facebook page to watch the coverage. It's like it didn't even exist last Friday evening.

It wasn't my own typical Oklahoma infatuation with the weather either, my big sister lives up there. I had literal skin in the game. Even worse, as the first big long-track tornado approached T-Town, the storm tracker put it dead center on a course to her neighborhood between Tulsa and Skiatook.

Long story short, while we all lost communication for a bit, they fared pretty well with some minor damage to their house. Some outdoor cabinets were destroyed, a post holding up the porch, and some of their incredibly heavy steel patio furniture went missing, but that's about it.

They were safe and sound in their garage floor cellar, but said the rumbling sound of it blowing by was enough to give them a little worry. She said their ears popped like crazy too, as the pressure moved around on the barometer during the few moments there were between safe and doomed.

When cell service was restored, she called with an all-clear and our normal "Happy Friday" call. She told me her story, and I apologized for conjuring her storm with my "Twister" binge...

If there was ever a most perfect and least perfect time of year to make it a "Twister" movie night, wait until our next round of severe weather days. If anything, you'll get a decent story out of it.