If You Need A Heartwarming Weather Story, Here's Two: Baby In A Hurricane And Wedding In A Haboob

Dr. Juan Gershanik rescuing little
baby Christian Stewart from
Hurricane Katrina 20 years ago.
The two have kept in touch 
ever since. 

Christian Stewart of Houston, Texas just celebrated his 20th birthday. 

That shouldn't at first glance be a big deal. Plenty of people celebrate birthdays and you probably don't know Christian Stewart.  

But he's alive today against long odds.  Twenty years ago, Hurricane Katrina almost killed him. Except a kind, brave doctor saved him.

Stewart was born in New Orleans, nearly three months premature in July, 2005.  He weighed just one pound, 12 ounces at birth. He was still in the NICU at Memorial Medical Center in New Orleans when hurricane Katrina hit on August 28, 2005. 

The hospital was swamped with water. The emergency generators clicked on, but the water began to go after those, too. If the backup generators failed, Stewart's mechanical ventilator would stop, and he would die.

Enter Dr. Juan Gershanik, who rescued Stewart via a harrowing helicopter ride to Baton Rouge. 

The obvious spoiler is that Gershanik saved Stewart's life.  The good doctor has been attending Stewart's birthday ever since. 

For the full story in a video, click on this link, or if you see the image below, click on that. Then, below the video, Story #2 starts. 

THE WEDDING HABOOB

Things can get a little dusty with events this time of year in Arizona. Just ask a particular pair of newly weds

As ABC 15 Arizona reports:

Bekka and Jamie Ham just married amid a haboob
near Phoenix Arizona. Photo by Madisen Ruehle

"After a decade together, Bekka and Jamie Ham finally decided to tie the knot. They planned nothing too fancy - just a courthouse ceremony followed by some photos with their photographer and friend Madisen Ruehle to remember the day."

The courthouse ceremony in Chandler, Arizona, just southeast of Phoenix, was quick and flawless. It was the photography afterward that got tricky. 

"'We leave the courthouse and we just see a wall of dust coming. I didn't realize how fast it was coming - we were right in the middle of the dust storm,'" Ruehle said. 

The dust slammed into the couple and the photographer, but a rescuer was nearby.  Paul Roupas was getting ready for the grand opening of his new Aristocrat Coffee Roasters shop in downtown Chandler when he saw the couple in distress.

He hustled them into his shop and made sure they had a memorable if off the cuff wedding reception. Roupas brewed up some heart-shaped lattes, and had the couple pick out music for their first dance on a vintage vinyl record player. He didn't have Champagne, so their first toast to their married life was in the form of his and her ice cream cones. 

Outside, the dust turned into a muddy rain, then a cleaner, but gusty torrential downpour. But the newlyweds were safe inside to start their married life. 

Ruehle put the event on social media, where of course it went viral. She said her favorite comment on her post was:  "If a wet knot is harder to untie, then let it rain."

Here's the news video: Click on this link to watch, or if you see the image below, click on that. 

 

When Tornadoes Get Romantic

The bad pun people among us are calling
this a whirlwind romance. Storm chaser
Bryce Shelton proposes to Paige
Perdomas recently as a large
tornado loomed in the background
near Clark Lake, South Dakota.
She said yes 

 Nobody could resist calling this a whirlwind romance. 

On June 28, Bryce Shelton got down on one knee to propose marriage to Paige Berdomas. She said yes.

The reason why everybody knows about this is because of where the proposal took place. It was on a rural road near Clear Lake, South Dakota, which is no big deal. Except for the fact a large tornado was swirling nearby at the time.  

The now viral photo shows the proposal.

Both Shelton and Berdomas are storm chasers, two of the now-seemingly zillions of people who roam the Plains, South and Midwest in the spring and early summer, hunting down tornadoes and severe storms. 

The two first found each other online in the chaser community then finally met up one day in Iowa. They've been partners in storm chasing since. 

On the day of the tornado/proposal, the couple had been hanging out around Fargo, North Dakota, waiting for forecasted storms to develop. 

Finally, a promising storm popped up near Watertown, South Dakota about halfway between Fargo and Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and the chase was on. The storm eventually spun off the Clear Lake tornado, and by extension the proposal. 

The proposal had to be near a tornado. That was the rule.  

"She has always told me that if I was gonna ask her to marry me, she wants it be in front of a tornado," Shelton told USA Today. 

The whole thing at first glance looks kind of AI-generated, but in this case the proposal - and the tornado behind them, was very real. The tornado was more photogenic than most. In fact, it was among the most photographed twisters of 2025 so far. 

Which made the proposal photo perfect. 

To be fair, the real proposal was captured on a live stream with a tornado in the background. Storm chaser Brian Copic re-created the moment a short time later after a second tornado touched down. That's the photo you see in this post. 

The couple are hoping for calmer weather on their actual wedding day. "No tornadoes for the wedding. I want to wear a pretty dress," she said. 

Another romantic tornado. This time at a wedding 
ceremony in eastern New Mexico back in late May.

 I do have mixed emotions about this. The tornado also destroyed somebody's house, damaged others and injured a man. I guess people can find both joy and tragedy in the same event. 

This isn't the first marriage-related tornado incident I've seen. 

Tornadoes have been been known to be wedding crashers every once in a great while. 

On May 25, during an outdoor wedding in eastern New Mexico, a tornado touched down some distance behind the venue. 

Wedding photographer Chesnea Clemens spotted the tornado, then realized it wasn't headed in their direction, so they didn't have to take cover now if not sooner.

Instead, she hustled the couple to spot with a view of the tornado. The happy couple kissed under dark skies while the tornado twirled behind them. "Nothing says for better or worse like saying I do with Mother Nature throwing down in the background," Clemmons posted on social media.

As cool as these incidents are, if there are wedding bells in your future, I hope  your big day has clear, calm weather.