Had the scariest moment of my life tonight.
I was in one of the AvGas trucks when it started to rain. Long story short, sometimes you can be too focused on getting paperwork right to hear thunder and lightning approaching.
First time out doing this sort of thing in this kind of weather. Line supervisor had told me that he'd let me know when to come in if things got bad. I radioed him a couple of times to make sure I was really supposed to be doing this, with no reply. He was out running one of the tugs with a wet (and thus non-functioning) radio.
I GTFOOD (got the f*** out of Dodge). I figured that if he wanted to chew me out, that was okay... no way in heck, though, that I'm going to be driving 1200 gallons of explosive around while unpredictable columns of plasma hotter than the surface of the sun and almost as loud as an arty bombardment were landing as close as 1/4 mile away.
Visibility dropped quite quick to about 150'. Window was already damaged, so rain's pouring in while I make a beeline back to the area the truck's supposed to be in when not in use. Lightning all around, ear plugs in because it's hitting
right there, wet tarmac... you get the picture. If I didn't get back in time, at least I'd be going out in a blaze of glory. *cheap shrug*
At this point, lightning's coming so often that a couple of times I think I'm catching a glimpse of aircraft strobes just outside my windows, as at this point I'm on the taxiway. I can't see much of anything, but enough to realize that a good part of the ramp is already under an inch or so of water. As I came parallel with the terminal, my radio crackled to life long enough to hear the gasp of one of the desk ladies saying "Polo (my callsign/ nickname), you're doing a
fueling run?!? In
this?!?"
Got back in one piece, though, and spent the next 45 minutes chain-smoking, drinking mixed hot chocolate and coffee, and listening to blues in the office while slowly drying out. Storm broke long enough to get everything put away and where it should be for the racing inspection scheduled tomorrow.
Fun night.
Long time since I've had that much adrenaline in my system. But I don't think I'll ever be actually looking to go through that again.
