"November 10th started out slow... I had the day off and had seen the high-risk warnings the day before, so I was fully prepared to hit the road if necessary. Most of the preliminary reports said it would be worse to the south, but one never knows. I got plenty of things done early in the day, to make sure I was free for later.

I got a call from fellow photographer Lisa Dutton about 3:00 p.m. and she told me that Van Wert, Ohio had been hit by a large tornado and I had just checked radar and saw some interesting cells out in front of the main squall line. One particular cell was growing by leaps and bounds and was heading just south of Findlay, in a NE direction towards Seneca county and Tiffin, just 15 miles from where I live.

I talked with the editors at The Blade and they decided to put me on overtime and get my "Storm chasing Butt" into the field to see what I could come up with. I quickly consulted with Nancy Bose, Chris Howell, and Brian McNoldy before heading out, got all necessary phone numbers, printed out one last radar image, grabbed a rain jacket, cameras and hit the road.

I headed South on SR 53, a direct route towards Tiffin, and was met by some amazing cloud to cloud lightning and wind gusts to about 50mph, as I approached Tiffin, I skirted the north part of town along Second St. and stopped quickly to photograph a group of bar patrons looking up at the ominous sky. As I was shooting that, I got knocked on the head, by what I thought was a walnut, but I discovered was inch to inch and a half hail. The air was still and hail was falling.

I looked to the south and saw several funnel clouds swirling around each other. In the distance, two funnels pulled down from the cloud base and formed one. I slammed on the brakes and leaned out of my truck window and got about 10 frames off of the tornado before the whole town went BLACK. The tornado turned black instantly the second it touched the ground. I tried to get in behind the tornado and was blown from one lane of the road to the other in a second. I gave up my pursuit at that time, because I did not know if there were other tornadoes in the area, and it was too dark.

I headed in the direction of the first hit of the tornado and as I topped a hill, a tree blew down over the road, I slammed on the brakes and skidded into the outer branches, no harm done, just a good scare. I backtracked and found the initial touchdown, it hit a subdivision and completely demolished several homes, and one of the houses second story and roof were over 100 feet from the foundation. I was there before the rescue personnel and photographed people digging through the foundation for survivors. Fortunately, the only fatality was a dog. Later that night I was sent to Fostoria and Port Clinton and ended the night around 10:00 p.m. and the rest is history.

My tornado photo ran in the next day's paper and then ran in newspapers and magazines all over the world. Reportedly in Egypt, Hong Kong, London, Australia, the front page of the New York Times, The Boston Globe, six columns in USA Today, a full page in Time Magazine, and will be published later in December in Life Magazine's Pictures of the year edition. This proves that even if the photo is not the best ever shot - if it is the only shot from the news event, it is certainly the best!"