Go to the 30-minute mark to see the storm chasers' encounter with the tornado.
Editor's note: The last name of Chris Havely has been corrected from "Bergin" in the original version of the story. The photo caption accompanying the story has also been changed to reflect that the students involved in the incident went out as individuals and were not associated with the Ball State Storm Chasers.
Ball State storm chasers Brad Maushart, Chris Havely, Kirk Hinz and Ball State alum Brandon Redmond made the trip to the Great Plains over the weekend to chase a high risk storm system they had been monitoring all week.
"Basically we knew that there was a high risk of severe weather and going to be a threat for multiple tornadoes, so we decided in the middle of last week that we were going to take a chasing trip over the weekend out to the plains and had planned on targeting Kansas," Redmond said. "We ended up leaving Muncie Friday afternoon."
Maushart said the high risk conditions on Saturday produced plenty of tornadoes.
"[There were] over 120 reports of tornadoes over that one day, on that Saturday, both Oklahoma, Kansas and into Iowa even, so it's quite a few for one day," Maushart said. "We got, ourselves, five tornadoes: four mostly during the day- one of those four was after sunset - and then the fifth one, is the one we got stuck in, in Wichita."
The storm chasers were traveling through Wichita after sunset following a tornado-producing storm when their weather radar failed, leaving them chasing tornadoes blind.
"So as we got into Saturday evening, we headed down I-35 toward the Wichita area," Redmond said. "A large storm that had been producing a tornado headed toward Wichita, and we tried to stay out ahead of the storm. But we got caught in some poor road networks in the city itself and lost Internet data and ended up actually getting caught in the Wichita tornado," Redmond said.
The storm chasers were heading east when they crossed paths with the tornado. Redmond said the team thought the storm was moving northeast when it was actually heading southwest.
"We ended up driving to the Bowing factory, which is on the south side of Wichita, and I guess the tornado had reformed, too," Hinz said. "I think it was our east. It hit us, pretty much blind-sided [us]."
Maushart said the team was forced to stop driving.
"There was really no driving because debris was flying at the car. Insulation, other small rocks and pebbles and sand peppered the windshield," Maushart said. "Lucky it didn't break, but it almost looks like ... someone with a giant hand pressed on it [the windshield] because there's stress cracks all around the outside edge of the windshield, so that will have to be replaced."
The team said the experience shook them up.
"Definitely one of the most intense experiences I've ever had in my life," Redmond said. "Probably the scariest moment in my life, one of those moments where your not sure if you'll make it out in one piece or not."
Hinz said he felt that they could have been blown away by the tornado because the wind blew at speeds up to 160 mph.
"We were just waiting for [our car] to kind of topple over, but thankfully enough after getting hit by the big tornado, and maybe like, a satellite tornado, ... we were finally out of the way," he said. "And [after] seeing all the damage to the buildings around us and all the debris, we were just thankful to be alive, really."
Redmond said he is very fortunate, and he felt like someone was watching over them.
The storm chasers were able to share their experience with anyone who had access to their live feed, but they aren't necessarily ready to have the same experience anytime soon.
"Saturday, we got pretty much more than we bargained for," Hinz said.
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