Riding The Storm Out
Back in the nineteen-eighties Ed Blankenship owned a Dodge Colt, which he had bought
from his sister. He used the car for basically going to work at Phillips where 90 percent of everyone
in the area worked. One night his daughters went to music practice, his wife was working at the local
nursing home, and he was getting off work at Phillips. When all of a sudden out of nowhere a storm
blew up.
Ed jumped in his car and took off towards home. He had the windows down in his little brown
colt when the rain started pelting down. Even though it was ninety-five degrees outside, Ed rolled the
windows up to a crack to prevent getting the rain all over him. The wind came in from the west,
however, and it was a hot wind.
Ed watched out his rearview mirror as a wall was ripped off of Phillips Petroleum Company
(PPC [where Ed worked at]) Since the tornado was headed in Ed's direction, he gunned it home. The
only problem is that the winds were too strong, and it picked the car up. It threw Ed out of the car and
smashed the colt as if it were an aluminum can. Ed came out of it with lacerations, bruises, and broken
bones. He was sent to the Jane Phillips Hospital overnight for observations. He told everyone that is
how he rode out the storm.
His daughters had ridden the storm out in a BMW. They had gunned there BMW to their music
lesson, only to find out that due to the storm it had been canceled. The instructor let them in the house
only to have an argument over whether you should open the windows up for a tornado or not. They
had the radio on during this Bartlesville crisis. They were all in the house riding the storm out
together.
As for Ed's wife she was a charge nurse at the Jane Phillip's Nursing Home (located behind the
hospital). It was her responsibility to get all the patients with oxygen tanks and without into the halls.
They had the radio set to a local radio station as it told how the tornado was destroying the town. As
she busied herself with patients and phone calls the radio station played, "Riding The Storm Out". Her
only thought was, "Oh, so that is what I'm doing."
Paul D. Eccles
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