Tornadoes

My daughter is terrified of tornadoes. No idea why, not typical in our area of NW PA. A post the other day made me think of this. Has anyone here lived through a tornado, have pictures or a story to tell? They fascinate and scare me as well.

My wife went through the Joplin tornado. It was just 3 weeks before our wedding. She lived in the bottom floor of a 3 story apartment. She got in the tub and rode it out. She was praying harder than she ever had and God must have listened. Everything was leveled on all sides of her building. The top floor was gone, the gas station on the east side of the building was leveled but the center two apartments on the ground floor was left intact. She only had one broken window. We decided that God put his hands around her area. The tree by her door still had leaves but 5 feet out the cars were covered with roofs and debris. 30 feet out the trees were leveled and had the bark taken off the trunk. The other side of the building had a sports complex leveled but she was spared and as far as I know everyone in here building were spared. Unfortunately, bodies were found in the debris surrounding it. I rushed to her place as soon as I heard about it. You can't believe how happy I was to see her out front when I arrived. Cell phones were jammed by so many trying to call so there was no way to know if she was ok or not. I'm still singing praises for the divine protection she got.

Google "1979 Wichita Falls tornado",I was 13 years old, very eerie day, biggest hail stones I have ever seen (grapefruit or bigger)I was not actually "in" the tornado but saw it plain as day from the other side of town. approx a mile wide swath completely through town. something like 44 killed, no power or water for about a week or so.

I've lived in tornado alley in Texas all my life, remember at least 5 times seeing funnel clouds, been IN two, the worst one in 1957, when two ran parallel for 30 miles. I was 9 years old then, recall helping Dad help neighbors who lost their homes (rural area south of Dallas). Some lost just the roof, some complete house. One barn exploded out as the air rushed back in after the vaccuum. One neighbor was plowing with a Farmall M, lightning (sp?) started so he abandoned tractor and ran for a shallow ditch....he held an old plank in front of his head....plank had gravel imbedded in it like shotgun pellets.....he survived, but his new home lost roof and got heavy rain, ruined all. One neighbor had his home"s contents scattered for 1/2 mile. Our home held up cause Dad built it like a barn, but we lost every tree on our acre houseplace. Our rural church was destroyed and a big old beautiful historic schoolhouse dissapeared in pieces.
They can come up fast, usually hail first, lightning and then wall cloud, then incredible wind. The roaring sound is no joke, will never forget it.

Never directly affected but lived in the Waco area 10 years so I saw several. I did Emergency Response for the State which included disaster recovery. I have seen a 2x4 driven into a telephone pole. Later, my staff from the Austin office worked the Jarrell TX tornado in the '90's. The asphalt as ripped off the roads.

We watched one go through about 5 miles south of us a few days ago.....

Here in Mn. just the other day we had a tornado in the south & a blizzard in the north.

Back in North Dakota when I was young we had one go close to our house near Sharon . Tore up lot of stuff around us , pretty scary . My sister lived outside Kelly Iowa, near Ames .We had a graduation party for her . Wind blew all day . Had a DJ and dance out in her yard . Just after dark wind died , got creepy quiet. Looked over to see speakers blowing over. Buddy was standing in front of glass entry door. He was sucked into the house as door shattered . I was dancing with a gal, held on to her as we were lifted up and ended up at end of driveway about 60 yards away . Looked up to see Twister touch down in field across the road . No injuries to anyone . Luckily it had gone high enough over the house . Garage door was open and it pulled all of the attic insulation out of the house. Glass from shattered door was embedded in walls and carpet . Next morning we went looking for garbage cans etc. Found my glasses in field, bent and busted . I had left the window in my car open about 6 inches. It was filled nearly to roof with corn stalks . Field where it touched down looked like someone took a giant shop vac to it .

I've been on the edges of four or five, most recently last spring when one took down trees around my house. One came over my office building downtown few years ago; made the news because it blew a huge church steeple down on a guy in a car.

Here in north Louisiana most of our tornados are "rain-wrapped", meaning that you can't see a funnel, you just know that something bad is happening.

I was in Joplin a month after the big one hit there. It's hard to imagine the devastation a tornado that big can produce. National Geographic produced a documentary on that storm; it's well worth the effort to find it and watch it.

There are even songs to go with the discussion!
Rainmakers Tornado

We had one go about 14 miles east of us in 2010. Wound up hitting Wadena MN. Several people killed.

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/fgf/?n=20100617_tor_wadena

Link, with story and pictures.

Rick

Was in one in the 90's up in the mountains. Trees were blowing across the road in front of us. Finally found a road that allowed us to get home.
Last June, one went right in front of the house and did this to a bunch of trees. My driveway is under the mess. That morning our 3 year old grand daughter asked our son if we were going to have a tornado that day!
Fortunately, most of our tornadoes are small, but one south of us in the 80's was huge and traveled from mid state SC up into NC.
Richard in NW SC

was within 200 yards of one once,..lots of power in those things,....shook the old 2 story house

I was in USMC Boot Camp at the time, but my mom was out driving around (trying to get to work), when those 7 tornadoes hit the Grand Island, Nebraska area on June 3, 1980.

A few years ago I was setting in the pickup in front of the shop when a nasty hail storm came up. Boss left me and ran in the shop. Hailed for about half an hour. Finally stopped and he came out about half deaf. Told him he should have stayed in the pickup, it was loud but not as loud as it was in the shop. Next morning we discovered three trees along the pasture fence a hundred yards north of the shop had been torn out of the ground. Never even saw the funnel.

2004 Hallam, Nebraska..F4.. 2.5 miles wide.. It went 2 miles south of me as the crow flys.. I was lucky..others were not..Helped clean up a few places...Thats the closest I"ve been and care to be after seeing what it did. Still cant help but go outside and look around when the warnings are posted though..

i was in the plainfield il one in 1991. 29 killed. i lost 3 friends in that one. found the body of a 28 yr old female. young mom. tornado sucked her out of the basement. she was covering her baby. child survived. my godsons mother had her hip crushed when the house got blown apart. brand new construction. tornado came from the northwest and knocked out the warning sirens. unbelievable the damage that was done. heres a link
poke here

Does she have an underground bunker ?

I was just thinking the other day about that mudslide tragedy. Mudslides must be even more dangerous than tornados as a lot of people are dead and missing from it.

I think it was 1989. James and I were living in Combine, Tx., s.e. of Dallas. We had a Victorian style house shaped like an 'L' with a porch on 3 sides. Master bedroom had its own entry door. We had put screen doors up so we could open the door in cool weather.

I woke up one night because a plastic milk jug that I used to water plants was blowing around in the 'L'. Got up to get it and it was strangely warm outside. Being half awake, I wondered why the dryer was on (dryer vent was a few feet away) and went back to bed.

In seconds, wind got very strong and I woke James. There was so much wind going through the house, the mini-blinds in the girls' bedroom were whistling. Closed their window, but (luckily) they never woke up.

Clouds were blacker than the night. Wind continued to build and temp jumped 20 degrees from low 70s to 90's. We could hear a rumble in the distance. Neighbor's large garbage tote went bounding across his yard and the road. James' 65 p/u was in the driveway and rocking hard. I had to hold on to one of the porch posts to stand. By God's grace, it missed us.

The oddest thing was the temperature jumped from a cool low 70's to very warm upper 90's. We lost a few singles off the house, but nothing else. Wind was so strong it bent the neighbors basketball stand made from 6" metal tubing/pipe.

We learned later it damaged some homes southeast of us, but no one was hurt.

Very eery night.

About 12 years ago one hit while one of my daughters was helping me work on a planter. She made it out of the barn but I didn't and I watched the poles come completely out of the ground and slam back down again.Every time the poles would slam back down in the holes dirt would fall back into the hole so it left the barn looking like a roller-coaster.Some trees snapped off about a third of the way down while others were uprooted. Pole barn metal was all around her truck but not a single piece hit it. One of my co-workers lived a few miles from me and was the only fatality.

A couple of years ago one hit in a half mile in front of me when I was coming back from the sawmill. One fatality there, too. Each time the victims lived in mobile homes.

Why is a southern divorce like a tornado?

Either way, some ol' boy is about to lose his double wide. . .

One thing for sure if you've ever heard the HOWL of a tornado as I did in my youth you'll never forget the sound.

The weather never used to bother me but I'm a little gun shy now. In 1999 on a Sun afternoon I was working out in my shed on something, wife was at work, I was baby sitting, daughter comes out and says the sky looked bad and she was scared, looked outside and we ran for the house, told the kids to hit the basement,ran upstairs and closed windows, got halfway down the steps and the cattle shed came through the room I was just in.
Tops got blown out of most of the trees in the yard, had a chimney on our bed, tin riveted in the south wall, tin scattered half a mile and driven in to the road bank in front of the house, laminated 3x9 trusses on top of the roof, a steel gate attached to the side of the shed door frame,3 2x12 over the house and leaning against it
Insurance co said straight line winds, neighbors said looked like a big ball of dirt coming , I didn't see it.
I lost 19 pounds in 7 days cleaning that mess up. Just glad my eight year old daughter was on the ball that day.

That must be why our Lester pole building kit came with large concrete cookies you put in the bottom of the hole and they had a rebar U shape went under them and you drive the L shaped upper ends into the post and then staple them. This would sure help hold them down from uplift.

I was just a kid when one started up by our place. Grandpa lived a few miles east and called on the phone to tell us to get to the baseme. I remember coming up after it moved on. It took out the neighbors barn, moved on and twisted a house on its foundation. Just a mile from that it took out another farm. Finally after more damage it crossed the Missouri River and hit the Port Neil Power plant just south of Sioux city IA. I still remember the oats fields that had been windrowed were bare but the power lines and fences were draped with oats stalks. This would have been about 1984 or 86.

Summer 1964, just before leaving for the Army. Tornado petered out an eighth mile away from neighbor I was working for. Took his Dad"s barn a quarter mile sway, virtually all the buildings on the next farm over.

saw the one that tore up marengo ind as it crossed hi way 150,, by then it was pretty well petered out ,, but it still had a punch, saw strange lookin cloud couple years ago that turned out to be a tornado about 3 mil.es south of me ,been hit by tornados at nite and figured it was real bad ,serveral times , early am , when I was a kid the 18 ft barn door was found in the trees acrossroad , another time the barn at the bickle place lost the roof and some of the rafters ,,good thing it had serveral hundred bales in it or it would a took of,, another time the headed wheat was laid down and twisted 100 ft wide ,,neatest one was the one that went directly above my house,, did no damage til it touched down in Louisville ky on Dixie hiway ,happened couple yrs ago 5 pm, I saw it formin as it approached , lots of distant howlin wind noise as it went over ,, but no wind on ground , except spurts and sputters of rain and blasts of wind that was cold and warm ,,but directly above me, my sara and I witnessed a awesome twist of pastel colors , like paint being mixed in a bucket blue ,pink ,green, yellow tinted with gray ,, , the next minute the cloud became very dark and seemed to be droppin down a mile east of me ,, but there was no damage ...

Back in 1975 my wife and I went shopping and left every window in the house open. When we got back the roof of the woodshed leanto on the back of the house was laying upside down on the house roof,except one piece of sheet metal we never found. The rain must have been horizontal because it went in the open windows and soaked the walls on the other side of the rooms. The barn on a farm up the road from us was pushed off it's foundation moved east about 8 feet and was still standing. There was a teenager in the barn when it went down, and he was saved because he was near a bull in the barn and the bull kept the beams and floor joists off of him. His right foot was crushed and had to be removed but he gets around all right with a bad limp. What a job that was tearing down an old barn built about 1945 that was still standing and in good shape.The barn was about 80 ft long and 32 ft wide. Lots of the old barn went into the new replacement.

I was in the middle of a motorcycle trip from Anoka, MN to Austin, TX last summer. I rode my motorcycle clear through the middle of the second round of tornadoes that went through Oklahoma City/Moore, Oklahoma on May 31-June 1 2013. I had no idea what I was riding into, as it was clear skies until it got dark that evening. they had closed I-35 behind me, and I was by myself on the interstate for nearly three hours, stopping occasionally because the rain, wind, and hail was so bad that I couldn't barely go 25-30 mph and still see.

Around 3 a.m. was the time I pulled into the Super Wal-Mart (either in the south side of Oklahoma City, or in Moore, I cannot recall), and the gas station attendant apologized because she couldn't supply power to the pumps to fill my motorcycle. Told her that I didn't need fuel, just needed someplace to sit and wait out the rain. She said I could stay as long as I needed, and asked if I had been riding all day from MN. Told her I had, and she informed me that the interstate has been closed for hours, and that I missed the tornado that went through by about 20 minutes. I looked around the parking lot, and I knew I was in the previous F-5 damage area of the tornado that went through two weeks earlier. There were Disaster Relief trailers everywhere, and people were driving around in vehicles that literally had all the windows busted out of them. Wouldn't you know it, when I crossed the TX/OK border into Gainesville, the skies opened up and the sun started drying me out.

When I came back through, I really had a chance to see the damage. I guess my answer to your question is; Have I been through a tornado - I don't know. Take a look at the pictures, it was quite a trip.

Photos in order:
1. National grassland prairie preserve in Kansas nearing sunset
2. Heading into the storm, just going into Oklahoma
3. Damage in Moore, OK coming back through
4. More damage in Moore, OK
5. Coming home through the Turner Falls, OK area.
6. Pulled over somewhere in Oklahoma fueling up - watching the lightning off in the distance. Things were awfully quiet at this point of the night.

I went to the WeFest music festival that year, and remember driving through and seeing the damage that was done. Pretty incredible, but was NOTHING compared to the damage I saw driving through Moore, Oklahoma last summer (See my post above).

Lived in St. Petersburg Fl must have been at least 20 years ago. Had a tornado spin off a hurricane And go over the top of our house. Heard a big crash as a tree across the street split and half of it Literally cut the house across the street in half. The tornado never actually touched down but It continued to take down trees and damage homes for several blocks. This happened at night, the sound of the wind and branches hitting the house woke me up. Didn’t get much sleep the rest of that night

Back in about 1975 we had some nasty storms in N Central Ohio. About the middle of the west edge of our oats field was a big Pin Oak which didn't get blown down but the limbs on the south side of it were all twisted & tangled up. The Oats were heavily lodged until about 1/4th the way across the field. There in the still lodged oats appeared as suddenly as a brick falling from the sky, a round patch not more than 8" across in which the oats were chewed & ground to a pulp about like the grass that sticks to the underside of a rotary mower. That initaial 8" circular pattern was the west point of a long skinny diamond shaped path of pulp! It grew in width until it was about 4' across then began to taper back down to a point at the east end where it disappeared before it got clear across the field. It was sort of a long narrow diamond shaped thing in the field that was headed for a bunch of White Ash trees at the east fence. The tops were ripped from those Ash trees at about 25' and we never did find the tree tops! We figure they landed someplace in the neighbors woods of about 80 acres.

National Weather Service called it a down burst of straight line wind. Tornadies do some strange things!

I watched one from 30 miles away; that is as close as I ever want to get to one. What I can't figure out is why most people who live in "Tornado Alley" don't have a safe place to ride out the tornado.

Years ago people used to have root cellars that they could take shelter in. Guess people today think that it won't happen to them.

There was one in the late 80's that hit the home place. We lost some of the house and barn. It was howling for sure. I was in the basement with the folks huddled under a mattress.

The most interesting part was walking the pasture to clean up. It had hit a golf course before us and there were golf balls in the pasture. They were completely smooth on the front and the extra "skin" was pushed around to the back. It was blown open and empty inside. Also picked up a lot of cookbooks for some reason.

The house that it hit before us was pretty interesting. The house seemed like it was only slightly damaged until they realized the curtains were hanging on the outside of the house but still attached to the rods inside. It had picked up the roof, sucked the curtains over the top of the wall, and set the roof back down. The cars were all ok in the garage but had to be totaled because there was glass embedded in every inch of the paint. It would slice your hand if you touched it.

Its a miracle that more people werent killed in Joplin..The last picture is what the Joplin tornado looked like 60 miles to the north..

Had a storm late last May. The clouds turned black and it started to spit a little hail. My draft horses were standing in the hail, so I went to the barn to shut them in. When I got them shut in, I decided I had better head to the house. As I looked towards the house, I saw a white rope tornado just above my house. I was looking to the NE and the tornado was just on the back side of the house, so I didnt really panic, but ran to the house and told my wife that if she wanted to see a tornado she had better come and look. As we went around the North side of the house and looked to the NE, I saw the rope tornado still just to the NE of the house, but beside it was a 1/2 mile wide black tornado. By now it was about 1/2 mile away to the NE. My neighbor who was 1 mile NE as the crow flies lost his roof, completely lost his barn and a shed.
This was the tornado that you may have heard about on the news that actually ended up turning around and going backwards, which was towards my house again. It ended up just stopping about 3/4 mile straight West of me and tore things up for about another 20 minutes. It finally went back up and gave up.
The meteorologists said they have never seen one back up that way.
When I first saw it it was still light out, but soon it was dark and the power was out. It tore several power poles out. I had the weather and radar on the I-Pad, and the radio station kept saying the tornado was headed right towards me. It was dark by then and the wind was blowing so hard the rain was straight sideways. I could't see anything. My wife was in the basement with the little dogs. I was sure when the smoke all cleared there would be nothing left, but other than a few limbs, I survived just fine.
A person might think that a tornado 1/2 mile away is not something to be worried about, but believe me it will make you sit up and take notice. There was over 400 head of cattle killed as the tornado went through a feedlot. Dead and dying cows and calves all over. Don't ever want to see anything like it again. Fortunately the tornado was in pasture land for the most of it's run. No person was hurt, and if not for the feedlot, there wouldn't have been too much loss of life. Bob

Actually the tornado ended up 3/4 mile to the East of me not West.
Having said that, I remember seeing tornados on several occasions as a youngster. One time my Dad and I were in a pasture checking cows and a tornado was on each side of us. They were probably a mile away, each one, but as a kid that was neat. A lot of them will come down for a little bit and go back up and never do any damage. Just once in awhile do they cause damage. However, as my Dad was pointing out the tornados, a bolt of lightning came down and struck right by us (we were sitting in the truck) and killed 6 cows, all around the pickup. We never even felt anything as I remember. I remember looking at the cows and there was smoke coming out of there ears. They were deader than a mackerel. Probably 40 years ago now. This is in the center of Kansas. Bob

Although I was raised in the Los Angeles area, I've lived most of my life in the desert. Being a Miner and bouncing around from one mining camp to another, I've always lived in travel trailers & have never owned a stick-built home.

Back in 1980 while working at the Mines in Death Valley, CA , a damned HUGE dust-devil (similar to a tornado but DRY) came through the Company's Mobile Home Park. It touched down across the street from us, hit a singlewide M.H. and litteraly ripped it off it's frame. It then picked up the frame & all the debris, flipped the frame 1 1/2 times in the air and slammed it into the singlewide directly across the street from us. It then turned 90 degrees and came directly at us, hitting our 1956 Flamingo 32' Park Model Travel Trailer head-on. Fortunately our trailer was ground-anchored with 3/8 inch steel cables over the top of the trailer. Ours was the only trailer in the Mobile Park that was anchored. - I learned a long time ago about anchoring trailers in the desert, we occasionally get Hurricane Force winds of 80+ MPH in the desert. - The dust-devil passed over us and continued across the M.H.Park and then went up the hillside depositing a path of debris nearly a hundred yards wide. I had other folks who witnessed the event tell me that when the dust-devil hit us that it didn't even quiver my 30 foot tall mono-pole antenna mast.

After this the Company quickly installed frame anchors on all of the Mobile Homes in the Park.

Doc

Palm Sunday 1965. I was 5 years old. When it was all over and we walked outside, one of the barns looked like a porcupine with all of the straw stuck clear through the boards. One of the cows went back to grazing in the pasture with a pitch fork that was sticking out of it, handle first in one side, out the other missing all of the vitals. One of our oak trees, a huge one, was set gently along the back of the house parallel to it, barely touching it. Another one in our front yard by the road that I walked under because it was propped up by big limbs on one end, and the roots on the other, just ripped out of the ground. One of my friends, Stuart, was actually sucked and picked up and set down a ways from his house that was destroyed, no one hurt, the rest of his family untouched in the basement. I haven't seen Stu in decades, but he stuttered very badly from that day forward, but desribed the whole thing very vividly at the age of 5 years old also. The grain elevator in Wyatt had a locomotive thrown through it. In the short video below, the photo of the twin tornado was taken on the south side of town. Throughout the '80's, you could still see its path because the trees were not as tall as those next to it. In 1990, the week that I moved into my new home in Romeoville, IL where I had moved to from Indiana, a tornado came through that was 3/4's of a mile wide, from Bartlett to Joliet, just south of me. In the middle of its path in Plainfield on Rt 30 just north of Rt 126, was a farm house dead center of its path. All of the outside was gone, but the inside walls were still standing, and I will never forget the sight of a wall clock, pictures, mirrors still on the wall with a recliner chair still setting in place...and the whole outside, all four sides were gone right in the middle of a 3/4 mile wide path where corn used to be.

They are one of the many things that make life intersting. The same week, maybe two of the Plainfield tornado, an Amoco barge knocked the bridge down by my home, and 6 inmates escaped just south of me in Joliet. I was having second thoughts of having moved to Illinois. I've been back home in Indiana where I will take my chances for over a decade now.

Mark
Palm Sunday 1965

Video was there when I looked at it, but gone. Do a Google on "Palm Sunday 1965 Tornados". Plenty there.

Mark

(quoted from post at 15:21:19 04/02/14) I went to the WeFest music festival that year, and remember driving through and seeing the damage that was done. Pretty incredible, but was NOTHING compared to the damage I saw driving through Moore, Oklahoma last summer (See my post above).

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If you went through on US10 then you missed the worst hit area just off of MN 29 on the south west side of town. It destroyed the high school, bus barn, Cenex fertilizer plant and a built in city owned swimming pool plus damaged a lot of homes. It started about 7 1/2 south east of my place, went through the town of Almora, killing 2 people there (elderly couple, woman was dead right away the old guy hung on a few days) then moved over to 29 and jumped back and forth across the highway till it hit Wadena. Just east of the intersection of MN 29 and MN 210 there is a home. They yard has looked like a dump for years with a couple of out buildings that were in poor shape. The tornado took the out building and the junk but left the house with only some shingles missing. Wife's uncle knows the guy who owns it. He's being giving him heck about have to call in a tornado to clean his place up ever sense. I watched the track on my computer as the storm passed through. Was tense for a few minutes there when it was on the ground south east of us because no one knew where it was going to go.

Rick

I remember hurrying home when the tornadoes leveled Albion (PA) and hiding in the bathtub with my sister while my parents watched out the windows. We were I think 5 and 3. Mom lost an aunt in Albion.
What I remember more about it was every time there was a cloud in the sky mom was worried there was going to be a tornado and every time there was a watch up we'd sleep half the night in the basement under the work bench. For years.

When western Tennessee was getting pounded that one summer (think it was Jackson or nearby that got leveled) around 03 or 04 I was headed east out of Memphis when I saw the DOT cops out trying to get the drivers to roll on out of the scales, and in the lightning you could see the tornado, maybe a couple miles to the north. Pulled off at the next truckstop for the night.

Thats the same week that I moved into Romeoville. Was a wild week or two for me. I was thinking that I should not have bought that house. Tornado, bridge knocked down, six inmates escape from prison. All the signs were there...MOVE FAR AWAY and don't look back.

Mark

The Army had me on duty at Fort Riley when the one hit Topeka. The old saying was the big high hill on the southwest side of Topeka would keep a tornado from hitting it. In 1966 a tornado come around that hill like it was not even there and cut a path a mile wide in places from southwest to northeast across Topeka killing 16 people. The wife's Aunt and Uncle lost their home.

In 1968 a tornado went from Lincoln to past Farmer City, IL. Only 2 people were killed. I was in a machine shed with the hired man and really never heard anything but the rain. We were 4 miles south of it and another mile south the pavement was dry. But that night there was between 14 and 16 inches of rain total. Lots of damage from wind and rain. Wife and I were at MIL's house along Rt 10 in Deland that night. Water ran across Rt 10 into her basement and filling it within a block of reaching the floor joists.

Last November the dwelling was about 150 yards from the centre of that F4 that ran thru Tazewell County. I was here, the better half was attending church with her mother. Not much fun and still need to completely redue the siding/windows/roof. Still consider myself fortunate, at least the structure stayed intact and only lost an outside metal shed and contents. Just across the street everyone on that whole block lost most everything. Close to being much worse, the next door neighbor whom was located further away from the tornado lost her entire upper roof structure and it landed in my front yard. Missed landing on my roof by only a couple of feet.

I've been close to a few smaller tornados and a couple huge ones. The two I remember most are F5's. May 3rd Tornado that came through Moore, Ok in 1999. I was 1/2 mile away from that tornado when it went by. The pressure change, silence, wind change and then noise was amazingly impressive, then the smell of pine and nat gas afterward in demolished neighborhood. I was on the North side if its track so i was positioned in the in-flow side. The wind going into the tornado at 1/4 mile away was pulling grass out of the ground. In the direct path of this tornado it was pulling side walks and driveways up, houses were condensed to foundations only.

The second one last year, another F5, on May 19th again through Moore. I wasn't real close to this one, my house was almost a mile away so I didnt get much damage but got a lot of debris from destroyed homes and such. What impressed me the most was the amount of dirt and insulation chunks that were stuck to all 4 sides of my house, even up in the eaves and soffits. A lot of paper, some wood, fiberglass, metal paneling etc. I was surprised at the amount of pictures and pieces of pictures littered everywhere.

Its hard to describe the feeling you get inside from the pressure change, the temperature change, and silence right before the storm. Then the noise and wind comes almost instantly after the silence, to me it sounded more like a lower pitched jet engine from a large commercial aircraft. The wind is not straight line, more of a rapid swirling type wind that kind of lifts off the ground.

The most impressive damage I saw from the May 3rd, F5 mentioned above was a fairly new F-150 sitting upside down in a guys drive way, just a little crooked but almost perfectly lined up like it was parked there. The cab of the truck was smashed almost flat. There was a 2"x4" stabbing through the bottom and into the cab, seat and instrument panel. The weird part was that the board cut through half of the drive shaft, floor board and then through the seat and into the dash in an almost perfect hole just big enough for the board to fit through. I talked to the guy that owned the house and he said he didn't know who's truck it was and never saw it before.

I also saw a little Nissan car sitting up in the middle of a large cotton wood tree. This neighborhood had about a 4 block wide destruction path where every house was totally gone, hardly even a standing wall in any of them but one house still basically intact right in the middle of the path. That house was heavily damaged but mostly there where everything around it was gone.

I might fit your description as I live in a mobile home on top of a ridge and we do get tornadoes. If I were to dig a storm cellar, the copperheads would find it. It would have to be a real bad storm for me to want to ride it out with a bunch of copperheads.

As it is, if the weather looks likely to produce a tornado, I go into town and hunker at Dad's house. He's got a full basement.

Lived south east of Edmonton. Black Friday went through in 1987. A lot of the footage in the movie "Twister" is from the Edmonton tornado. Lots of pictures on the net. Came within about 1/2 a mile from our place but turned and headed toward Edmonton. The sky was pitch black and before the tornado there was a severe downpour.

(quoted from post at 08:50:13 04/02/14) My daughter is terrified of tornadoes. No idea why, not typical in our area of NW PA. A post the other day made me think of this. Has anyone here lived through a tornado, have pictures or a story to tell? They fascinate and scare me as well.

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On April 27, 2011 (my B-Day if that don't beat all! ) we had the worst night in the history of Alabama. Like some of our sister states, we were hammered badly F4's and a few F5's. Many died and many were injured many lost everything. There were several small towns that were wiped off the map. I was hit by an F4 that killed 7 of my neighbors and tore up everything. I lost the roof on the house and garage/barn and my poor 71 acres hardly has a tree left on it. It went right down the frigging middle. We were home and it had just gotten dark and the power had gone off from the first storms rolling through so we were just sitting and talking in the dark and this god-awful noise started. It was deafening and her little long haired chihuahua jumped off the couch and darted into the bedroom. Swmbo said it was a tornado and we ran into the bedroom and jumped into the double walk in closet and started praying for God's protection. Remember it was pitch dark so it's hard to really know what is happening as it is sort of like being in the twilight zone show...just surreal at the moment. The house started shaking like it coming apart around us, I mean jumping up and down and shaking uncontrollably. Then water started pouring in everywhere and it just added to the confusion of the darkness. Windows were shattering and it was just...well, confusing at the moment. Seemed like forever but was only a few seconds. When I came too, I was laying on her (I had crouched over her to protect her in instinctively) and her leg was broke. I was very dazed and wondered why my head hurt so. Remember it was pitch dark still. I started stumbling around to figure out what just happened and ran over some stuff that wasn't there a moment ago...seems mother nature likes to remodel stuff for you...lol. There were tree limbs and stuff in there and of course water everywhere and still raining in heavily. I managed to find the flash light while still muttering what the he** had just happened. Then I went back to check on her (didn't know her leg was broke just then as it wasn't a bad break and was in the non weight bearing bone, she said it like a bad hit). I got her settled and the rain slacked up by then and I started wandering around to see the damage. We couldn't really get outside very well as all the big oaks around the house were neatly re-arranged everywhere. I thought, "Well, there will be lots of easy firewood this winter!". The more I looked, the worse it got. We moved some electronics (tv etc) and furniture around to avoid the worse of the water drips by then. Wet carpet stinks btw. I looked outside to see if we still had any vehicles or chickens. My truck was still sitting where the carport had been and her car was moved a bit but okay, both had dents and scratches all over them from the flying debris. All 16 chickens were okay, but the pen was a mess. I'm still amazed that there were any chickens left in that wind. The more I looked the more depressed I felt about all of this. Daylight finally came and the cavalry showed up on 4 wheelers to help us out. It took the sheriff dept (we live way out in the sticks so local pd is about 7 miles away and out of jurisdiction), a little time to get the roads set up with road blocks as these idiots (I would call them people but they are just animals, really human garbage that would prey on people in a situation like this) were already starting the looting. In a trailer park about 3 miles down the road, a friend of mine in the fd said there were little kids crying and walking around looking for parents that were gone forever. They fished folks out of a couple of ponds nearby, ugly scene. UP and down the road in the area looked like a nuclear war zone. Two churches (and many houses) were just gone. Nothing left but the slabs. No debris, just frigging gone! Those little churches had been there for at least 100 years. The old old house on the front of our property (just used for storage) didn't miss a lick. I don't get it either, it is huge and just build on field stone for the foundation (it's up in the air about 2 foot on the stone pillars) and it did not move or get damaged. The next day, I ordered the metal for the re-roofing (the original roof had been torn up by hurricane Opal about 15 years before and I had re-roofed with the heavy metal panels so I knew what needed to be ordered to re-do it) and grabbed a crew to take care of it before it rained again in the next week. In coming weeks, I crawled, and I do mean crawled, down through the woods (about 2/3 was nice woodland thinned out every 15 years and lots of big oaks and large pines and home to deer/turkey etc) to check the damage. It was a big mess, all the trails I kept neatly bush-hogged were like trying to get through a jungle. The pines were all snapped off about 1/3 of the way up. The large oaks were all blown over with the root ball sticking up, very ugly scene. Everything was just all jumbled up and impossible to get through. I talked to several different timber outfits and no one wanted to get through that mess to cut up the timber so that was a big loss. I had it cut about 10 years before so the timber was ready for another cutting soon at that point....too late now. They said it was too twisted up and no good anymore. I still find all kinds of clothes/plywood/roofing/anything you can think of...when I walk down there and go through some area I had not been for awhile like when hunting. Some of it is still not accessible for the mess, I just cleaned the trails off the best I could. Anyway, swmbo got her leg in a cast and I got a titanium plate in my neck for the price of admission to an F4 tornado. Next time I am just going to go out and stand in it. I ain't going through this again... :x Those pictures you see on tv are very real to me. I still get a little nervous when a big storm comes up. Like they say...you can run but you can not hide!
I would like to add: Some don't like police people and occasionally I don't if I'm getting a ticket...lol, but I have a new found respect for the job they did. They were first on the scene with an emergency prepared plan and got the roads shut down and we had to show drivers license to get in and out to prove we lived there. They did an outstanding job and kept coming around day and night asking if were were alright and needed any help. Like I said, I have a much greater appreciation and respect for the job they do now. It's one of those things were you don't know until you really really really need a cop. :shock:

I now know what it means where the bible says it rains on the just and the unjust.

Interesting that someone mentioned the asphalt being pulled up. I remember some years back in north Alabama that an F5 hit a church and some neighborhoods and the reason the NWS knew it was an F5 afterwards was the asphalt was just sucked up where it crossed the road in places. I guess that is one of the criteria they look for to differentiate an F4 from an F5.

I remember the Albion (1985) tornado very well and others that day.

I was thinking it was 86, so I would have been 4, my sister 2.