JARRELL, Texas — "It was hot, sticky," Ryan Beck said. "It was just super humid, but it was absolutely blue skies."
Twenty-five years ago, Beck and a friend were heading back to college in Waco, Texas, after a road trip.
"We were always looking for the adventures," he said. "We didn't plan on finding that one."
Beck said they pulled off of Interstate 35 and into a gas station in Jarrell, Texas. That's when the blue skies changed.
"And that's when we saw a small tornado," he said.
Beck liked taking pictures at the time, but he didn't have a camera with him.
"So, I went in and got a disposable camera and ran up on the 35 and started taking photos," he said.
It was over in five or 10 minutes.
"It was literally an F-0 tornado," Beck said. "I mean, I'd almost call it cute. It was funny."
Until it wasn't.
"And that's when it got really bad," Beck said.
An F-5 tornado was forming, a storm churning with a power that hasn't been seen in Texas in the 25 years since.
"And then, that's when the thing just goes, it just from the bottom up," Beck said. "It just went straight into the sky. It was – I can't explain it. Like, it was different world. 'Apocalyptic' is probably one of the better words I could probably find because it didn't, it didn't seem real or it didn't seem like it was something that you could escape. I mean, it was there was no place to hide. And then you're like, 'What do we do?'"
What they did was put down the camera, get in the car and try to outrun the storm.
But Beck said there was a vacuum in the air.
"The intake, we couldn't get the car above like, 2,000 rpm to go to the third gear. I will never forget looking – I was in the passenger seat looking out of the driver's seat and all I could see is tornado," Beck said.
After being pummeled with what he remembered as baseball-sized hail, Beck said the two got past the storm. They thought about going back to help, but they couldn't.
"There was another tornado in Belton, so we didn't want to mess with that one anymore," Beck said. "We just kept going north. We got lucky."
For all of KVUE's coverage honoring the anniversary of the 1997 Jarrell tornado, visit KVUE.com/Jarrell. Watch our full "Remembering Jarrell: 25 Years Later" special report below:
MORE JARRELL TORNADO COVERAGE:
- 1997 Jarrell valedictorian reflects on life lessons from devastating tornado
- Jarrell teachers look back on the day an F-5 tornado devastated the town
- Rebuilding Jarrell: As the city's population swells, infrastructure demands increase
- After an F-5 tornado hit Jarrell in 1997, then-Gov. George W. Bush visited to survey the damage
- 1997 Jarrell tornado: Volunteers arrived in droves to clear debris, donate blood