There are no words to describe the amount of destruction that happened there. The biggest thing that we have had for a wind storm was 12 years ago we had striaght line winds that came through and leveled trees in a path and we had a severe thunder storms with that.

 

Jarrell, TX

VIDEO

That was the F-5 that hit Jarrell, TX in 1997. It wiped an entire subdivision off the map, to the point that a police officer noted the damage as "minimal" un aware that where he was, an entire subdivision had stood there, just minutes earlier. Grass out the ground, asphalt off the roads, and tore brick homes sitting on concrete slabs to shreds- taking the foundations.

This guy has pics I've never seen before of the damage. They are kinda small, though.

Jarrell (Formerly paved road)
http://www.k5kj.net/jer9.JPG

http://www.k5kj.net/jer30.JPG

http://www.k5kj.net/jer37.JPG

Driveway to, nowhere
http://www.k5kj.net/jer35.JPG

Believe it or not, there is a car in there
http://www.k5kj.net/jer31.JPG

Trees snapped off near the base. (That's power)
http://www.k5kj.net/jarr01.jpg


You know, they say this happened in May 1997, but I seem to remember this happening in late March, early April because my wife was still in Killeen, in the Army, and I was in Dallas. She got out in April 1997.

She was still at work, and the storm had gone over Killeen, TX and minutes later, dropped on Jarrell. it was even bad in Dallas that day. What spawned it, was a cold front coming out of the north, colliding with a warm surge coming off the gulf of Mexico. Most of the year (April - October), fronts hit Texas moving West to East; this one came North to South (Most common November - March), which is how hit us with heavy Thunderstorms first (Dallas) then moved south, missing Killeen, then dropping the F-5 on Jarrell.

Hearing the news (In our NOC, the Weather Channel is on, 24 x 7) I called to check on her... But, they say May- so, I'll call it May. A short pen beats a long memory... (I don't believe it was though)

That storm was called the most powerful tornado to hit America based upon the damage it did, and the items mentioned above. However, because no one was able to measure the windspeed, and there was no doppler radar nearby, measuring the rotation- it's not official. I think the Moore, OK Tornado of 1999 still holds that distinction of the highest windspeed ever recorded, circa 313 MPH.

Wikipedia has it now as the 4th most damaging Tornado.
Two of the 3 more powerful, took place in years after it (1998 & 1999) and the Plainsfield, Il Torndo of 1990. Global Warming perhaps?

J/k" 1997, all the weather guys were talking about El Nino.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wikipedia.org

The first Williamson County Sheriff's Deputy to arrive on the scene was unfamiliar with that particular area — he saw the path of the tornado by the damaged earth it left behind, but he did not immediately see any typical damaged homes or debris, and called out on the radio that the tornado had not seemed to have produced any damage. He was not aware that the blank land that he was looking at had been, 10 minutes earlier, the Double Creek neighborhood. It was wiped clean — houses were vaporized, concrete slabs were pulverized, and even sewer & water pipes were sucked up out of the ground.

 

That driveway to nowhere photo looks like a house near here from 2 years ago in a rare November tornado.

I guess the thing must have centered the house. It sits on a hill in the crest of a 90* curve on my way to work.

There was nothing left.. and I mean nothing. It erased a fairly new 2 story house.... foundation, landscaping, shrubs and all. There wasn't a single stick of anything left. Just a driveway that ended abruptly in a freshly mowed "field" and a 6 month old Dodge pickup that had been thrown roughly 100 yards and was crushed to about 24" tall. That house (rather empty yard) and truck were shown on all of the national news media outlets over the next few days.

The really eerie thing... that tornado followed within 1/4 mile of the exact same path of one less than a month before. They actually shared the same path for a pretty good stretch. There was a house that was under repair from the roof being lifted off and sat beside it in the yard that was flattened by the second one.

 

The Moore, OK Tornado, revisited:

OK, I take back wanting to be a storm chaser... Not unless they're going to get me a helicopter. (Which is what I'd think they should be chasing them with (From a distance, of course).

Moore, OK, May 3, 1999 (Two weeks after I got my first F-150, and when gas was $0.89 a gallon)

Picked up the Dallas Morning News the next day, and I'll never forget that picture. Utter destruction.

 

Quack, back in my Jr. High/High School days- a Tornado hit Clayton, LA during the night. No one got killed, but in it's path, it destroyed 4-5 brick homes, ripped the steeple of a nearby 2-3 miles away) brick church, and, ironically- left intact every wood-frame house in the neighborhood.

Houses you would think couldn't stand up to a healthy sneeze, lasted through a tornado. Houses you would think may fair better in a lightweight twister (f-0 to F-1, F-2 maybe) were completely totaled.

No one was killed, or seriously injured; but to look at the mess and know it happened in the middle of the night, that was a blessing.

********************************************

Can't take them for granted though. And F-2/F-3 hit Westminster, TX about this time last year, at near 10:00 PM. I was on my way home from work, and it was bone dry in Frisco, a hot wind was blowing, and there was lightning in the sky up north of McKinney.

I got home, turned on the news- and heard that Westminster had just been hit. I think 3 people were killed, and 10 were injured in what I thought most people in a house would survive- an F-2/F-3. But, while many did live- not all were so fortunate. An elderly couple was killed, as was a 13 year old boy.

After seeing what a well-organized dust-devil can do, I take Tornado's very seriously. Not serious enough to leave TX, but I know they are no joke.

No point in running, they hit all 48 contiguous states.

 

Very true.

What bothers me around here is that they have a bad habit of hitting under the cover of darkness.

I'm a heck of a lot better at dealing with weather like that during the day when I can see what's going on than I am having to guess what's happening.

 

Usually, as night falls- with the loss of daytime heating, the storms weaken, and the chances of tornadoes diminish.

However, that's not always the case- because there have been several November and December tornadoes. I remember one hitting Bossier City, LA coming up to Christmas one year, at night.

So, at night (like last night) when there's a loud clap of thunder, foloowed by long, low, deep rumbling- your minds starts questioning: Is that thunder rolling that long, or- is that a Tornado? This is especially disarming when it happens at 1:21 AM.

 

Our tornadoes usually come from supercells that start out down your way and continue to build as they move this way. When they hit the Mississippi river here, they blow up. They travel 60-70 miles and begin to weaken again. There are some very odd weather occurences that happen here that are somehow directly related to the water.

For whatever reason, our worst weather now is usually between 7 pm and midnight.

It's fairly odd as our weather followed more traditional patterns when I was a kid.

It must be global warming.

 

thanks hersh, i was thinking/talking about jerrel

 

Yeah thats a fullsize bronco. Don't see a brake light so '80-'91.

Very sad.

Adrianspeeder

 

Pics





Adrianspeeder

 

^^^ Thats what I was talking about in my earlier post about the farm equipment. That makes me sick to see all that equipment tangled up like that. I guess you have to be from a farm to see why that is upsetting, haha. No telling how many millions of dollars of equipment was destroyed... but then again, the whole town's gone and no telling how many millions (or billion?) of dollars in damage there is. Looks like they'll be parting out some combines...

 

On another board, someone asked if the superduty in the wall was a photochop.







Adrianspeeder

 

Definately a Pshop there. The wall is brick, and that grille is plastic...Plastic < brick...Enough said.

 

So what do the people do when somethin like this happens?? Do they try to rebuild everything or do most of em just move away? I'd have a hard time spending my money rebuilding a house that could be destroyed by another tornado the next year.