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'I wasn't scared that much': 16-year-old pickup driver tossed in Elgin tornado lucky to be alive
Riley Leon spoke with Good Morning America after video of him driving away in his red truck after it was flipped by a tornado went viral.
ELGIN, Texas — A video of a truck getting swept up in a tornado and driving away is making its rounds on social media. The video is a scene from a tornado that was confirmed to have touched down in Elgin, Texas, that evening.
Elgin is a town about 40 minutes northeast of Austin.
The shocking video was posted on Twitter by Brian Emfinger, a storm chaser, on March 21, the day a tornado outbreak ripped through Central Texas.
Good Morning America spoke with 16-year-old driver Riley Leon, who said he’s lucky to be alive after the tornado flipped his truck over. In the video, his red pickup is seen landing upright before driving down the road.
Watch the full interview:
“I wasn’t scared that much, but it was a shocking moment for me,” the teen driver told GMA.
He was able to drive off without a scratch.
According to a preliminary report released by the National Weather Service, the Elgin tornado was an EF-2 tornado with winds of 130 mph and a track length of 14 miles.
The Elgin tornado left a trail of destruction. Many residents woke up Tuesday morning to see the damage for the first time in the daylight.
A property owner in Elgin said when he looked around Tuesday morning, he was “devastated.” He said during the peak of the storm Monday night, he, his wife and his dog hid in a closet as what sounded like a “freight train” blew through. They “watched the roof go off the top,” but escaped without a scratch.
One Elgin man, 84-year-old Doyle Rogers, was sitting on his chair eating a sandwich when the storm happened. He escaped with his life by crawling through a crack between the door and the wall, which both caved in.
“I’m kind of devastated. I mean, 50 years of hard work, gone,” said Rogers.
An EF-2 tornado also touched down in Round Rock and traveled 35 miles. An EF-1 tornado was recorded in Kingsbury, Texas.
Meanwhile, we are waiting on the NWS to report on two other tornadoes reported in Jarrell and Wimberley.
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