Sam Smith Films EF-4 Tornado In Illinois With His iPhone As It Passes Over Him [Video]

The below video shows what could happen when stuck in the path of a large and dangerous tornado. Sam Smith was in his truck driving near Rochelle, Illinois, when he saw an EF-4 tornado barreling nearby. As he calmly states in the video, Smith was unsure of which direction the tornado would take, therefore Sam wasn’t sure of the direction he should drive in order to get away from the monster.

The video of Smith in Rochelle caught the attention of The Weather Channel, which reported snippets from the video on its website. On YouTube, the video is titled “Illinois Tornado April 9, 2015 – iPhone filmed” and has garnered nearly 300,000 views since it was uploaded on April 10, one day after it was recorded.

Appearing on the YouTube channel of Aaron Rooney, the video contains a description that spills more details about what Rooney’s supervisor encountered during the scary event, and why Aaron decided to disable comments that poured into the video as its popularity grew.

“Very close encounter with the tornado that rolled through Northern Illinois on April 9, 2015. My boss and friend Sam Smith took the video and sent it to me soon after. Sam is not a storm chaser and was on his way to Indianapolis. He was visiting from North Carolina on business and had never had any experience with this type of weather. Unfortunately, I had to disable comments due to remarks made that were flat out vile. Sorry.”

Despite all the melee over the comments, plenty of viewers are noting just how calm Smith continues to sound throughout the video. Sam’s calmness during his EF-4 tornado encounter was due to the fact that Smith stated he was on the phone with his 10-year-old son during the tornado’s approach, reports Patch?, but said he hung up the phone as the tornado got closer. No doubt he wouldn’t have wanted his child to hear the tragedy that could’ve happened if the tornado incident had proved fatal.

“It look like it’s coming right towards me. I have honestly never been in a tornado before. It is coming right over the top of me. It’s totally scary. I don’t know really what else to do.”

Smith continued to reiterate that he wasn’t sure what to do, but Sam did place his truck in reverse and sit beneath an underpass — a move that may have helped to save his life. Experts claim those in the path of tornadoes should leave their vehicles and take shelter in a ditch if possible, however, it appears Sam did the right thing in his instance. He can be seen in the video pushing his mirrors back into place after the tornado pushed them inward. Smith also reported that it felt like the tornado was almost lifting his truck off the ground as it passed.

As reported by the Inquisitr, entire towns were devastated by tornadoes that touched down in Illinois recently.

[Image via Sam Smith tornado video]