Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
First responders talk to each other in front of a pickup truck and camper blown over by a severe wind gust on Interstate 40 west of San Jon.
One person was hospitalized and at least six vehicles were overturned during a severe storm last Tuesday afternoon that hit Interstate 40 west of San Jon and closed the freeway for nearly 3 1/2 hours.
According to a New Mexico State Police public information officer, high winds rolled over five semi-tractor trailers and a camper near mile marker 348 of the interstate about 3 p.m. Sept. 17.
I-40 was shut down from 3:20 to 6:45 p.m., NMSP stated.
Traffic was re-routed to Old Route 66.
One person was transported to Trigg Memorial Hospital in Tucumcari with injuries that were described as not life-threatening.
Tucumcari truck driver Rodney Dorr posted a video on Facebook from inside his cab as the storm hit. Heading east, he had pulled over onto the shoulder in a construction zone.
Heavy rain, then hail, could be seen and heard hitting the windshield, and he voiced fears the wind gusts might tip his truck over.
"The truck is rocking back and forth like a tornado," he says in the video.
Dorr later said in a message to the Quay County Sun: "I've dodged many tornadoes driving through Texas in a big rig and had to park under bridges, and this time was really close."
One of the gusts blew over a truck and trailer feet from where Dorr parked.
Lora Hutchins Goode of Tucumcari messaged the Quay County Sun and stated she was going west as a passenger, coming back from Amarillo from a doctor's appointment.
She wrote she saw one motorist whose car lost its windshield during the storm, cutting his arm.
"It was pretty crazy," she wrote. "Things were flying all over the place; I thought for sure it was a tornado. I thought we were gonna be flipping over at any time, and I'm still pretty shook up by the whole experience."
Quay County Sheriff Dennis Garcia said his department had no confirmed sightings of a tornado in the area, nor did spotters for the National Weather Service office.
A NWS official, however, said conditions in the region were right for a possible microburst, which can produce maximum wind speeds of over 100 mph.
A severe storm also struck the northern Quay County village of Nara Visa last Tuesday. (See other story in this edition.)
The National Weather Service station at Tucumcari Municipal Airport measured a wind gust of 56 mph on Tuesday afternoon.
Quay County Emergency Management sent two messages that afternoon warning of severe storms in the eastern part of the county.
