When a violent electrical storm hit the Waikouaiti area late on Saturday morning, Mr Brennan decided to cut short his golf game at the Waikouaiti golf course, and then noticed a black tornado approaching the township.
"It was really spectacular - the funnel coming down to the ground, and when it [withdrew] you could see all the debris was being sucked up off the ground - big branches maybe the size of a person," Mr Brennan said.
"There was all sorts of stuff being sucked up . . . just like polka dots of rubbish being spun in the air."
He took a photograph with his cellphone and then quickly headed home to pick up his digital camera, planning to take a better shot.
That was when, driving along in his 4WD Jeep Cherokee, he got a bit too close to the action on Ramrock Rd, about 2km south of the township.
"I thought I'll get close to it and see what they're like - but I got too close."
Mr Brennan then found himself inside the tornado.
"I didn't realise how big it was - it was a couple of hundred metres across.
''It was way bigger than I ever guessed."
He briefly became worried about his safety as he watched tree branches and other debris being whirled around him.
"This was sucking up quite large objects, so I thought `Have I done the wrong thing?' but I was committed anyway."
He had previously seen poplar trees bending in a gale, but never anything as violent as this.
"They were like being whipped backwards and forwards - incredible."
Also getting too close to comfort that day was another motorist, Waikouaiti volunteer firefighter Tina Anderson.
She had been out for a quiet drive in her Toyota Celica just south of the township when she nearly drove into the tornado.
The tornado suddenly loomed up ahead of her as she came round a corner- "a big V of dust, dirt and branches".
She pulled over to the side of the road and stopped while it passed over her, on Ramrock Rd, near a farmhouse which was damaged in the storm.
"I though it was cool, actually.
''Not much fazes me," she said of her close encounter.
She headed home, but within minutes she was back in action with the Waikouaiti brigade, which was called out to deal with fallen power lines and then to help secure a damaged farmhouse.
