Hempfield 15-year-old's tornado video becomes YouTube sensation

When Tyler Tubbs went to bed early Thursday morning, his YouTube video "Tornado in Hempfield" had 9,000 views.

The 15-year-old awoke a few hours later and found 14,000 views of his video and his 15 minutes of fame. By 9 a.m. today, the video had almost 180,000 views and had aired on ABC's "Good Morning America."

The video, about a minute and a half in length, chronicles Tubbs' experience during the F2 tornado at his Fort Allen home, a hard-hit neighborhood.

"I posted the video (Wednesday) at about 6 p.m. as soon as the storm was over. At about 12 (midnight), it started getting really big," said Tubbs, a freshman at Hempfield Area High School.

"Do you see that twister• Do you see that twister?" Tubbs asks repeatedly in the video, shot with his iPod. Tubbs then takes a call from his mother, who was out picking up his brother. "There's a tornado right over our house, Mom. It's a tornado! I gotta go. I'm gonna shut the door and try to lock it up. It's right above us, Mom."

Fellow Hempfield student Zach Bowman was in perfect position to catch the storm after eerily dark skies canceled track practice at Hempfield.

Bowman, 18, and several classmates pointed their cell phone cameras skyward and recorded the tornado.

Bowman said he has gotten calls and e-mails about the video he shared on YouTube, including from some storm chasers in the Midwest.

"They were asking me all about it," he said yesterday.

"The clouds were moving so fast. It was the fastest thing I ever saw. It looked like an airplane. We were just watching that cloud move. I was about to turn the camera off and (another student) said, 'Check it out.' ... Then, 30 seconds later, we saw the tornado," he said.

"Look at that cloud. That's forming a tornado!" a girl shouts on the video.

"That's awesome! Dude, seriously, let's storm chase. Who's down to chase the storm?" a boy asks.

There are screams and an expletive or two. Then a girl yells, "Inside! Now!"

Tubbs didn't expect his video to "go viral."

"I think people like it because I got it out there quick," he said. "People might think it's funny because I just got real excited about it."

"Oh, my God! It landed! Tornado! Tornado!" Tubbs yells in the video.

Tubbs was interviewed on four Pittsburgh-area FM radio station morning shows yesterday, including WDVE, WKST, WXDX and WZPT. At its current rate, he expects the video to reach more than 1,000,000 views.

He hopes to get on the Comedy Central TV show "Tosh.0," hosted by comedian Daniel Tosh, that features online video clips.

"'Everybody has been trying to send the video link to him, and even some of the radio stations are trying to reach out to him," Tubbs said.

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