Trama

The residents of a small town come face to face with a deadly and unpredictable series of tornadoes. Among them is one boy struggling to keep his family safe in the dangerous weather.

A Nebraska farm community is plagued by a storm with a series of tornados acting against normal patterns. Dan is left at home to look after his baby brother Ryan along with his friend Arthur while Dan's mother is at work. His stepfather goes to check on his grandmother. When a tornado destroys the house, Dan and Arthur attempt to re-unite the family—Jim Brawn <jim_brawn@amuc.mtroyal.ab.ca>

Saturday, October 8, 120 miles northeast of Blainsworth, Nebraska; 1:16 p.m.

Bob Irisin, a metrologist for the Kansas City weather bureau, is riding in his Bronco truck when he stops and radios to his friend Stan in Kansas City, that he is witnessing a sudden change in weather patterns in the area. Then a tornado suddenly touches down near a farm where Bob sees a family of a man, woman and their little girl standing in front of the house, unaware of the tornado approaching behind them. Bob drives as near as he can go and manages to yell out a warning to the family seconds before they see the twister coming. The family runs into their storm shelter just in time before the twister destroys their house. Bob drives away from harms way just in time.

Meanwhile, in Blainsworth, there is the annual fall Bike-a-thon race for the high school kids. 13-year-old Dan Hatch gets a flat tire and doesnt come in at all. Dans stern father, Jack, is arguing with a banker who's asking to foreclose on his hardware shop since a new mall has opened in the nearby town. Jack refuses to sell the shop at any price. Dan walks his bike into the town square where his best friend, Arthur, talks with him about getting "crashed and burned" during the race. Jack walks over and becomes hard on Dan for not finishing the race like a man should. Dan yells at his father for being so demanding and that he can't expect anything from anyone. Dan's mother, Laura, with her new baby Ryan and her friend Jenny, walk by and never less tell him he did okay anyway. Just then, Dan is called to the square podium for he is has been chosen by a lottery to be the winner of a new Schwinn Voyager bicycle, much to his father and mother's delight.

75 miles northeast of Blainsworth; 3:37 p.m. Bob sits in his Bronco truck and radios in of rogue weather patterns, while observing another tornado rip through a nearby trailer park. Bob tells Stan that the front is moving south instead of north and the atmospheric activity is the most bizarre he has ever seen. Bob decides to travel to Blainsworth to see if anything will happen.

Outside of Blainsworth, Dan and Arthur sit in the woods looking up at the clear sky. Dan tell Arthur about his fathers demanding which is a driving force that he cant stand. Then Arthur's two younger sisters, Stacey and Ronnie Vae, appear and want Arthur to come home since their parents are out of town for the weekend. Arthur and Dan watch as clouds begin to roll in and they decide to get indoors. At Arthurs house, the boys play a game of pool, in which Dan forgets he's suppose to take his grandmother's dog for a walk.

Six miles northeast of Blainsworth 4:30 p.m.; Dan arrives at his grandmother Goldie's house where his father is already there taking her dog to the vet, for it has a bad leg. Jack yells at Dan for not being responsible for anything, and Dan rides on his new bike home.

Arthur arrives at the Hatch house, were Laura is getting ready to leave for work for the evening. Jenny arrives at the house to pick Laura up, were they talk about Jack being so domineering on Dan for he doesn't want Dan to end up a loser like him.

Nightfall. Arthur and Dan play with musical instruments, while checking every few minutes if baby Ryan in the next room is all right. Jack then arrives and tells Dan and Arthur to bring their bicycles in for its raining. Going out, they find that its raining hard and the winds are picking up speed. Arthur tells Dan that since hes originally from Los Angeles, he enjoys the rain, while Dan sees little amusement in it, for he tells Arthur that rain and hailstorms can get bad.

At the local diner in town, Laura is waitressing when Bob walks in asking for some coffee. Bob overhears a farmer named Gus talk about the storm and of tornados reported in the area. Bob tells Gus that most people killed by tornados are driving in their cars, and the best place to be is at home next to the nearest storm cellar. After Bob leaves, Laura gets relieved from her job and calls Jack to pick her up.

At the Hatch house, Jack, Dan and Arthur see a TV broadcast of a tornado warning in the area. While Dan and Arthur unplug all electrical appliances in the house, Jack tries phoning his mother. But the senile Goldie has passed out and doesn't hear the phone ringing. Jack then decides to check on her and drives off. Laura phones and wants Jack to come right away, but Jack drives off before Dan can call on him. Alone in the house, Dan and Arthur watch the TV, in which the picture gets increasingly static.

At the diner, Laura calls Dan again to ask if Jack is coming to pick her up. Then the phone goes dead. Jenny arrives at the diner to drive Laura home, when fierce winds hit the diner. Jenny's car stalls and she and Laura must take shelter in the diner. As they run back to the building, a flying trash can lid, carried by the strong wind, smacks Laura in the face, gashing her right cheek wide open.

At the Hatch house, Dan and Arthur talk about the storm when they hear a tornado siren. Then they hear a whirring sound approaching. Dan goes upstairs to check on baby Ryan while Arthur panics wanting to get out of the house. Dan sends him down into the basement while he goes back upstairs to get Ryan. When Dan arrives again in Ryan's room, he finds the baby not in its crib. Dan goes to the window and is almost sucked out by the vacuum when he sees the menacing sight of a tornado approaching the house. Dan manages to get Ryan and Arthur down into the basement when the tornado hits the house sending debris everywhere.

At the diner, Laura and Jenny huddle in the corner of the damaged building and hear a report on the radio that a twister has touched down where Dan and Arthur are.

Dan, carrying baby Ryan, and Arthur emerge from the wreckage which was once the Hatch house and begin looking among the wreckage of next door houses. Then the boys run into Stacey and Rhonnie Vae. Looking around, they find a neighbor lying on the ground, dead. Dan and the group gets into the man's car and drive off toward Blainsworth to find the rest of the Hatch family.

In Blainsworth, Laura and Jenny arrive on a bus at a rescue station which is already jammed with badly wounded people from the town. Bob Irisin is also there talking to a reporter, who tells him of the rouge weather patterns and that the tornado menace may not be over.

On a road outside the town, Dan, Arthur, Stacey, and Ronnie Vae come to a roadblock where the police officer there tells them to get out of the car so they can be taken into town. Arthur and Ronnie Vae get out with baby Ryan, but Dan, determined to find his father, drives through the barricade with Stacey to Grandma Goldie's farm.

Arriving at the farm, Dan and Stacey find Grandma Goldie in some wreckage of her barn. Taking her back to the car, they set off when they find Jack's overturned Bronco truck with Jack pinned underneath. Unable to move the truck, Dan and Stacey drive back to the roadblock and ask the policeman for help. While Stacey rides into town in a police car, the officer reluctantly takes Dan with him and other officers to get Jack out from under the Bronco. The officer then takes Dan and Jack to the diner where Laura works. Finding it destroyed, Dan wonders if his mother is all right.

At the rescue station, Laura is comforted by Jenny who tells her that Dan and Jack may be okey and are looking for them. Then another tornado suddenly touches down nearby and all the people take shelter wherever it is.

At another rescue station, Dan, Jack and the officer arrive where Arthur, Stacey and Ronnie Vae are waiting for them. While Arthur and Ronnie Vae fall asleep, Dan and Stacey talk nearby about the night and of the fear of the tornados. They start getting to like one another. Jack tries to get in touch with other rescue stations, but since all the phone lines are down, its difficult.

At the other rescue station, Grandma Goldie arrives and Laura asks her if Dan and the others are all right. Goldie is in a state of shock and speaks gibberish, due to a head wound on her forehead. Nearby, Bob is talking with Jenny about his job as a metrologist and they start getting close. Laura approaches them and asks Bob to take her and Jenny back to the house to see if Dan and Jack are there. Bob agrees and after the all clear signal is heard, the three of them get into Bob's truck and set off.

At the rescue station where Dan is, he overhears Jack about driving around to find if Laura is all right. Dan takes baby Ryan and they get into a rescue truck that Jack takes to find Laura. Jack is understandably not pleased when he sees Dan and Ryan in the back seat and wants to take them back. Dan refuses, saying that they should stick together because they are family. Jack very reluctantly agrees.

At the destroyed Hatch home, Bob, Laura and Jenny arrive and stare at the destroyed house wondering where everyone else is.

At the other rescue station, Jack arrives and finds out that Laura and Jenny were there and set out to find them. Jack and Dan arrive back at their destroyed house and are reunited with Laura and everyone.

Suddenly, multiple tornados touch down nearby and Bob says that since there is no place to take shelter around, that they should make a run for it. Bob and Jenny get into his truck and Laura, Jack, Dan and Ryan get into theirs and drive off. On the main road outside Blainsworth, the group watches multi-funneled tornados all round them in the flat countryside. Laura looks behind them and witness, to her horror, a tornado touching down on the road behind them and swallowing up a car with two people still inside. Trying to outrun the twister, they drive into town, when a flying branch smashes the windshield, knocking Jack out. Dan grabs the steering wheel and drives around the large debris on the road in the town with the tornado right behind them. The tornado chases them to an freeway underpass where they stop with several emergency vehicles. The tornado stops directly above the underpass and Dan is almost sucked out of the car window by the suction. Then the twister disappears. Bob, Jenny and a few other paramedics emerge from under their vehicles and help the Hatchs out of their truck. Shaken, but grateful to be alive, the Jack, Dan and Laura walk down the road as dawn begins to break.

In a voice-over narration by Dan, set one year later: the so-called 'Night of the Twisters' left five people dead, 15 seriously wounded, over 1,200 homeless and left $2 million worth of damage in Blainesworth.

Jack closed his hardware store but found a new course for his life in teaching football at the local high school.

Laura found a new job and still has time for the family.

Arthur got to be class president and is still a bumbling geek.

Dan got closer to Stacey and they began dating frequently and going to important school functions, including the junior prom.

Baby Ryan got older, and bigger and is still active.

Bob and Jenny got married and settled down in Blainsworth. They are expecting twins in the fall.

Grandma Goldie died the following April. But her memory lives on.