Pre-Intermediate Student’s Book
Life
12b Page 144 READING TEXT
The power of nature
It’s early evening and Rex Geyer and his family are eating dinner. On the TV, the
weather man is telling everyone to look out for tornadoes. If a tornado hit Rex’s
house, it would destroy it.
Suddenly, Rex’s brother rushes through the front door. ‘Tornado! We have to go
now!’ he shouts. The whole family run to the car. As they drive away to safety, two
cars go past in the opposite direction – straight towards the tornado.
If anyone else drove in that direction, they’d be mad. But the people in the cars are
Tim Samaras and Pat Porter who follow and study tornadoes. This year they are
trying to put a ‘probe’ into the middle of a tornado. So far they haven’t been
successful. If the tornado passed over the probe, it would record a lot of useful
scientific data so they are keen to try.
As Tim and Pat drive closer, the tornado gets bigger. They put a probe on the
ground and, at the last moment, they drive away. The tornado passes right over the
probe and gives Tim and Pat new and exciting scientific data. Unfortunately, for
Rex and his family, the news is not so good. The following day they return to their
house but it’s gone. Rex says, ‘There was nothing left, no trees, no house, nothing.’
