Dorothy Can Keep Her Twister – We’ve Got Packages to Deliver
There’s surviving the job, and then there’s literally surviving the job.
Up until this point in my career, I thought I had seen it all—drivers launching packages like Olympic discus throwers, vans stuck in places AAA wouldn’t dare tow from, one guy who somehow managed to get locked in his own vehicle (don’t ask). But nothing—and I mean nothing—could’ve prepared me for what hit us. No, really. A tornado hit us.
It started like any other weird weather day in the Midwest. You know, that strange shade of green in the sky that screams "I’m not just rain, I’m a plot twist.” The winds started, the sky darkened like it had been hacked by a 2003 emo blog, and the rain was falling sideways. I was mid-dispatch when my phone basically turned into a live horror podcast—drivers screaming, crying, reporting trees smashing into vans, getting swept off roads, blocked in by power lines and barricades that seemed to appear out of nowhere like Mario Kart traps.
And me? I was standing inside our soon-to-be wind tunnel of a warehouse, phone glued to my ear, completely and utterly helpless.
“Shelter in place,” they said.
“SHELTER IN PLACE?!” Are you out of your bureaucratic mind? That's what we’re doing?! That’s it?! No one had a better plan than “hope the tornado swipes left”?
I’ve been through some stuff in life. But this? This was different. I had 30 drivers out on the road. Over half of them completely unreachable. And all I could do was sit there, in a safety cage that was starting to sound less like "safety" and more like "soon-to-be airborne shopping cart." Doors blew off their hinges. Debris howled past like a freight train made of trash and regret. And for 3 and a half minutes—the longest 3 and a half minutes of my entire existence—we all just… watched.
There were dispatchers, Amazon folks, Flex drivers—all huddled together in this one strange little slice of chaos. It was like a weird, corporate-themed final destination meet-up where nobody had RSVP’d.
And then—just as quickly as it came—it was gone.
Like a pissed-off magician, the tornado vanished into blue sky, like it hadn’t just slapped our entire lives across the face with a Home Depot aisle worth of destruction.
I sprinted out the moment I could. Blew up every phone I had numbers for. Started locating my team. I didn’t know if I’d be calling for help or calling family. My heart was pounding so hard, I swear I almost had a six-pack from chest contractions alone. I found one of my drivers with a windshield that had just been intimately acquainted with a tree. But thank the Lord, he was OK. They were all OK.
Still, during the storm? I thought it was over. For them. For me. For everything. I pictured the headlines, the calls I might have to make to a driver’s family. I pictured my son, and the thought of never seeing him again, and suddenly, “Fantastic Plus” seemed like a joke written in crayon by a drunk gremlin.
Yes, I kind of fell apart afterward. And no, I don’t care who knows it. Because for all the logistics expertise, planning, and metric-chasing madness of this job… nothing, nothing, prepares you for the moment when it all falls away and all that’s left is raw, human fear.
But like every chapter in this saga of insanity we call delivery life, we made it through. Somehow. And I got one more story for the Driver Diaries. One more notch on the “What Fresh Hell Is This?” belt.
We now return to our regularly scheduled programming—where the scariest thing is still probably Customer Delivery Feedback.
In the days that followed the storm, the cleanup felt like a live-action reenactment of Jumanji: Tornado Edition. Fallen trees. Power lines doing limbo. Debris in places that defied physics. And gates—oh, the poor gates—bent, broken, or completely missing, like they'd taken the opportunity to escape their homeowner responsibilities and start new lives elsewhere.
But you know what didn’t give up?
What stood tall, proud, and fully operational like it had just come back from a Rocky training montage?
The Eagle II 1/2 HP Residential Swing Gate Operator.
A saving grace. A reliable friend in a world gone full chaos.While everything else around us was failing, this beautiful beast of machinery kept swinging (literally).
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14 feet long and holds up to 400 lbs—which is more than I can say for most of my post-tornado emotions.
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Comes with 2 FREE remotes, a receiver, and a photo eye included—because the only thing worse than replacing a gate is paying extra for basic features.
Whether you're rebuilding after a storm or just trying to keep your kingdom secure from porch pirates and stray raccoons, this thing is the gatekeeper you deserve.
Get yours now at Gate Operators Direct—because stability, reliability, and two free remotes shouldn’t be luxuries.
👉 Visit Gate Operators Direct to order
Your gate’s new personal trainer is waiting.