An ex-pat living in Alberta, Canada has proved that it takes more than a tornado to stop a South African from cutting the lawn by snapping a crazy pic of her husband doing his duties in a raging storm.
According to a report in the Times Colonist‚ Cecilia Wessels’ nine-year old daughter wanted her dad to come inside‚ but Theunis had his to-do list‚ and a tornado wasn’t going to stop him.
Cecilia snapped the picture of her husband, Theunis, on Friday evening as the twister passed near their home in Three Hills and obviously sent it to her family back in South Africa.
Theunis said the tornado was actually much further away than it appears in the photo, and that it was moving away from them.
There have been no reports of injuries from the tornado, although some other photos show downed trees and a barn with its roof ripped off.
“I literally took the picture to show my mum and dad in South Africa, ‘Look there’s a tornado,’ and now everyone is like, ‘Why is your husband mowing the lawn?’” Cecilia Wessels said Saturday.
“Our whole street, everyone was on their back patios taking pictures,” she said.
Theunis Wessels said he was keeping watch of his surroundings and saw the twister form as the swirling connected from the sky and the ground to form the funnel.
Both said tornadoes are not common in South Africa, but Theunis said he watched a TV program about storm chasers, so he’s familiar with them.
The tornado moved away to the east, he said.
“It looks much closer if you look in the photo, but it was really far away. Well, not really far, far away, but it was far away from us,” he said.
“I was keeping an eye on it.”
The actual storm looks quite scary… footage of the tornado was captured and uploaded to YouTube by Vance Neudorf.