The day Johannesburgers panicked about a tornado that never materialised

On 9 October 2007 thousands of Johannesburgers left their offices earlier than usual in a state of panic. They took to roads from 3 in the afternoon causing major traffic jams all over the city in their haste to be safe at home before the hour of doom... or so they thought.

Apparently a tornado warning was issued by an unidentified person that spread the word via email. The warning obviously spread like wild fire by email from colleague to friend to company to company . Unfortunately nobody checked with the weather bureau to verify this warning as they would have been told to expect a normal thunderstorm. The email warned of severe weather between 6 and 8. (The reason everyone left early is that if you work anywhere in Joburg you would probably still be commuting in this time.)

Unfortunately a few people, like me, that usually leave work at 3pm (as we have flexible working hours due to our ability to negotiate effectively) to go home or to attend tertiary education facilities were stuck in this traffic circus for 2 hours. Every back road and highway was clogged up by this mad rush. I passed quite a few cars along my route that have pulled over due to overheating.

Arriving at class, 2 hours later, less than half of the usual class attended. No doubtedly for fear of being swept up in the air by a tornado.

The predicted tornado turned out to be a windy and wet normal thunderstorm that cleared up before 8pm. It left the trees, roads, cars and homes wet - a normal occurrence during the rainy season.

The next day a few red faced people arrived at work joking that at least they went home early and unfortunately arrived later than usual at home due to the congestion caused by fellow panic stricken commuters.