These can be really scary.
I encounter one in 1980 or thereabouts whilst driving from Pof Adder to Springbok at a place called Aggenys. It was actually worst than this one...you could not see a thing, just darkness and obviously had to stop...it lasted for about 15 minutes...the car a Peuguot 404 shook considerably...did not know if there was a twister in the middle...
I've been through a few in my life. From a distance they look worse than they are, but you probably don't want to be driving in the middle of it. Best to stop and pull completely off the road until it's over and you can see again. Sometimes accompanied by strong winds, but I've never experienced one that scared me and also never heard of any damage caused by any of them. There's a lot of sand blowing everywhere for a few minutes and then it's over. Messy if you leave a few windows open in your house though.
I remember once when we were children we had one where the whole sky turned red from horizon to horizon. No strong winds, the dust just sort of hung in the air for a long time and you felt like you were on Mars. We had fun walking around in it.
No - but have a wonderful story to tell you. In 1973 I was a week away from my 6 month holiday in Europe - I was called to SWA because of a serious financial problem in the then Department of Water Affairs.
So off to Windhoek and from there to Swakopmund and Walvisbaai and and the underground water pumping system service to the two towns. In charge was a chap from Austria. After we got in he was cursing and uttering words I never heard before about an incident he was involve in two day earlier. He was driving on inspection after a terrible sandstorm the previous day. The way the people drove was to get going downhill gaining sped to get up the next hill. Unfortunately the hill he was going over changed the day before and instead of the normal slope suddenly had nothing but a steep slope on the other side. Chasing up the one side he went airborne and about of literal flying ended up with his nose buried in sand and him stuck in the desert.
So after hearing that story I wanted to make the atmosphere a bit easier I asked him why left a beautiful country like Austria and ended up working in the desert? He stared at me and made the following remark:-
"You obviously never met my wife".
I did not dare to challenge him any further on that topic - because his wife obviously was worse than the incident the day before.
A Jewish women went to Swakopmund on business and understanding German she heard the following (translated from German). "Come over tomorrow night for a party to celebrate the Kaizer's Birthday". This happened in the 1960's. When in Grass - Austria - I went to the Hunter's Museum and there was an elderly couple and the old gentlemen pointed to a photo of the Emperor Franz Joseph out hunting saying "What a great man and a top hunter. Talking of that the Emperor' workday started at 05:00 in the morning when he had breakfast with his mistress Katerina Schratt and first interviews started at 06:00 in the morning. Any person could ask for an interview with the Kaizer and interviews was scheduled not to last longer than 3 minutes. One day the lady and her servants overslept and at about 05;30 they rushed to the door and found the Emperor standing there. He did not know how t o knock on a door -since his whole life doors were always opened for him when necessary.
If there was an interview that the Emperor was interested in a further meeting was then scheduled that would last no loner than "10 minutes". He worked 6 days a week and took only a 14 day holiday every year - that was when he went hunting.
History always remains interesting and the world leaders of today could never be compared to the era of gentlemen and ladies who had their peoples interest at heart.
A great story Ol' Mike...the type I like. Africa to those who travelled a bit in it is an undiscovered library of them.
I enjoy Lawrence Green simply he wrote simple descriptive accounts of places and people of these type of places,
It's a diamond mine of short stories that Africa and indeed older Europe is untapped.
Looking back, I wish I had the gift of writing because I too have travelled a little bit and apparent ordinary people, so we think wrongly, people have undisclosed gems that die with them.
Seb, a bit more than 20 years ago I worked on a project in Goodhouse...it's Northeast of Springbok Northwest of Pofadder...we had a few hectic sandstorms ....the one was definitely a tornado and did some serious damage in the area.
Draad I see there was a tornado in the Pofadder area again, probably around the same time as the sandstorm in question. I've never been up that way during these storms, they may be worse coming through all that flat expanse before they hit the more hilly country further north.
It hardly ever rains there, but when a severe thunderstorm hits, tornados are quite possible...not too visible inside a sandstorm though.