1997 Jarrell tornado, and others

[futureman 22512]

first off, merry christmas everyone and god bless you all.  the family is asleep and I’m wired.

@Hagbard Celine had a good thread going on the shag and the topic of this storm has come up in another current thread here.  I have no real knowledge of the science surrounding tornadoes or these specific tornadoes in question, but I do find the topic interesting and hope that some learned doctors can lend some insight.

hagbard, knowing that you’ve searched extensively I’m fairly confident none of these are the video you have mentioned but they are worth viewing for anyone else. 

and a decent short documentary about the 1970 lubbock F5 tornado:

if anyone had experience with these and has stories to tell, please share. 

[Whatever 700]

Thanks for sharing. I'm fascinated with weather in general, but specifically tornadoes. I grew up in Taylor and the day of the '97 Jarrell tornado we were packing up our house to move to DFW. I was 14 at the time and remember watching the coverage on TV. My grandpa grew up in Jarrell and lived in Cedar Park at that time about a mile from where the other one tore up the Albertson's. This storm is so fascinating on many levels.

[wood 11230]

You know how they show the aftermaths of all those tornadoes that hit in Kansas, etc, and they're searching through a bunch of collapsed buildings and rubble? I went out there to help pick through the wreckage for people. The thing is, there was no wreckage. Everything was gone. Down to the foundations. Toilets & bathtubs, vinyl flooring even, stripped right off the concrete. There was nothing left over about 3" from floor level. Asphalt stripped right off the ground, etc. It was surreal.

[futureman 22512]

yeah I know it was by all accounts a very uncommon storm.  there are many, many details to cover of which I am completely ignorant.  the experts will hopefully descend in the coming days. 

[jimmyjazz 46001]

My main recollections were:  1) the oddity of it coming north to south and 2) making the judgment call to head home when my work had the perfect storm cellar (not designed as such, but odd for Texas).  I hauled ass home ahead of the storm and called my then-wife who was already in the lower levels of the Motorola design facility at The Courtyard.

 

[futureman 22512]

hagbard’s original thread is tough to top and has great info.  if you wanna check it out

http://www.shaggytexas.com/board/showthread.php/88313-Jarrell-970527

Edited December 25, 2018 by futureman

[Guest]

My family and I survived...Terrible Tueday, April 10, 1979 in Wichita Falls... in a car.  Still the scariest thing I've ever experienced.

 

[zork 629]

I vaguely remember the Jarell storm.  Was working for a mortgage company way out on Research near 620 at the time.  Heard stories on the radio of the roof being blow off in Austin of a Albertson's IIRC, among other anequdotal stuff being live reported on AM590??(edit: changed to 1300 the zone?  can't remember?  /old man disease).  Didn't recall the Jarell part till it was discussed after the fact then the Austin American Statesman had a picture of the foundations/damage later on , again IIRC.   So it was kinda bad in Austin, certainly if you were in the grocery store that got hit, etc, but nothing like it must have been in Jarell.  

https://www.wunderground.com/cat6/twenty-years-look-back-jarrell-tornado-catastrophe

Edited December 25, 2018 by zork

[El Diablo 4232]

1 hour ago, slorch said:

My family and I survived...Terrible Tueday, April 10, 1979 in Wichita Falls... in a car.  Still the scariest thing I've ever experienced.

 

Drove thru there for work not long after that. Surreal. All the trees with no leaves, the smaller branches even stripped of the bark. And the trash/paper hanging from the bare limbs, where the leaves should have been, like some post-Apocalyptic art installation.

[Chet Steadman 940]

Which CP Albertsons was hit?  I can’t recall what it is today.  

[Jerry Callo 8709]

21 minutes ago, Chet Steadman said:

Which CP Albertsons was hit?  I can’t recall what it is today.  

SE corner of 1431 and 183.

There was a Blockbuster next door and, after the tornado hit, movies were blown all over the parking lot.

Edited December 25, 2018 by Jerry Callo

[Jerry Callo 8709]

I was working a summer job in Georgetown when the tornadoes hit Jarrell and Cedar Park.  Jumped in my truck and hauled ass to Round Rock because our dog was out in the backyard - dog always freaked out during storms.  Round Rock didn't have a tornado, but the winds were crazy.  On the way home, I saw one of the large green road signs bend in half due to straight line winds.

[Stunns38 3538]

Yesterday, While driving through Jarrell, my wife asked me, “wasn’t there like a big Fire there or something in the early 1900s that wiped out the town”. I responded, no it was a tornado in 97 the day after I graduated high school.

I remember Albertsons being destroyed and I worked at the HEB(open)on Parmer and Mopac and shopping carts were literally flying in the parking lot. Black skies. Crazy day.

[MaybeACoordinator 8349]

There is nothing like tornado weather. I experienced it a few times in Tennessee. The fucking sky turns green, man, and you know that you have been cursed by God Himself. Even Genghis Khan and his horde were terrified of them. 

[MaybeACoordinator 8349]

Give me a hurricane any day over a fucking tornado. 

[Whatever 700]

I vaguely remember the Jarell storm.  Was working for a mortgage company way out on Research near 620 at the time.  Heard stories on the radio of the roof being blow off in Austin of a Albertson's IIRC, among other anequdotal stuff being live reported on AM590??(edit: changed to 1300 the zone?  can't remember?  /old man disease).  Didn't recall the Jarell part till it was discussed after the fact then the Austin American Statesman had a picture of the foundations/damage later on , again IIRC.   So it was kinda bad in Austin, certainly if you were in the grocery store that got hit, etc, but nothing like it must have been in Jarell.  
https://www.wunderground.com/cat6/twenty-years-look-back-jarrell-tornado-catastrophe

Great info there. Thanks for sharing.

[bolverk 29700]

When the Lubbock tornado hit downtown it actually twisted the city's tallest building. If you look at it from the right angle you can still see the slight bend in the structure.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.lubbockonline.com/article/20120203/NEWS/302039850%3ftemplate=ampart#ampf=undefined

Edited December 25, 2018 by bolverk

[Guest]

38 minutes ago, MaybeACoordinator said:

Give me a hurricane any day over a fucking tornado. 

Harvey wasn't as 'scary" as the Wichita Falls tornado for me; but it anything but a walk in the park.

[Wally Pryor 5261]

Always fascinated by how that tiny, thin rope of a tornado became a monstrously wide devil of death. 

I was listening to KLBJ FM that day and I vividly remember the traffic reporter coming on and saying that 35 was closed in both directions at Jarrell.  At that point, I knew it was bad and it was.  My cousin was the mail carrier in Double Creeks Estates.  Mail carriers in small towns typically know the families well and that was so in this case. 

 

 

[Zepol87 9189]

Tornados scare the shit out of me. Haunted by the Lancaster tornado to this day. Remember being under the stairs at my uncle's house hearing a damn train noise. You really can't comprehend how it sounds like a train until you hear the sound

[BrickTop 477]

Was working for a landscape company out of Jarrell doing a job in Georgetown just out of High school, we were laying sod and I’ll never forget the hail storm that came through, the sky looked blackish green and the storm was very violent, we got stuck on a feeder road about 3 miles south of Jarrell on 35,DPS had shut 35 down. We saw the shadow of the Tornado miles ahead, Later on I helped with the search and cleanup with WCSP. That event inspired me to become a Firefighter a few years later


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[Hpara759 1780]

I was in on this one......not fun

3 parts to this video

[Al_4_ISU 12473]

I was caught right in the middle of this one.

https://www.weather.gov/arx/jun1104

That sumbitch dropped out of the sky right in front of my brother, our buddy, and myself.  We were out trying to chase it (this is right where we grew up and we’re living) and found it.  We saw it hit the grain elevator mentioned in the article.  It tore right through the middle of a long pole shed, but left each end standing.  It’s still that way to this day.

[TwiceHorn 31514]

My cousin's house was destroyed in the Wichita Falls tornado and my aunt and grandmother spent it in aunt's closet.  We went up there the following weekend and saw a very tall sign (Gibson's I want to say) mounted on twin steel i-beams bent flat to the ground and a trashcan lid fully wrapped around a tree, among other signs and wonders. 

[NorthLoop 14219]

When the April 2, 1982 (day before I was born) tornado hit Paris, TX, they found the Paris Lumber sign a week later in Arkansas. This was one of those big ass business signs up on two 40 ft poles. 

[staboner 4984]

i will never forget jarrel day. driving on 71 from houston back to austin. either right before or right after bastrop i had to stop as there were trees on 71. cars coming the other way flashing me. and then it went purple and orange. i think i missed it by 10 or 15 minutes. wasn't the jarrel one, but another that was in the area. i think there were 4 or 5 in the area that day. 

[MaybeACoordinator 8349]

8 hours ago, slorch said:

Harvey wasn't as 'scary" as the Wichita Falls tornado for me; but it anything but a walk in the park.

Harvey was a tedious disaster. Just rain and rain and rain and rain....and then your house and car were flooded. 

[Guest]

5 minutes ago, MaybeACoordinator said:

Harvey was a tedious disaster. Just rain and rain and rain and rain....and then your house and car were flooded. 

I woke up two different nights at midnight watching torrential downpours knowing how much rain had already fallan and that the forecast wasn't supposed to break. I knew people had already lost their homes and that we still had the potential to lose ours.  This was 3-4 days long.  Seriously, if not longer.

The tornado was over in less than 30 minutes.  Deathly silence afterwords.

I don't ever want to do either again, and maybe because I was 8 years old, the tornado scarded the living fuck out of me.  Hurricanes don't.

[Bill Brasky 1449]

On the day of the Jarrell tornado I was in Moody.   I heard on the radio there was a tornado warning nearby and could see the cloud but I got some bad info on where it was headed.   I thought it was headed for where I was at on the north side of Moody but it was going actually going to the southwest at a parallel angle to highway 317.    I started going south on 317 and then after a few minutes the radio said it was headed for where I was at on 317.   I had my truck doing 100+ mph going southbound, then I cut over to the east on FM 1237 to go pickup my grandmother and get her out of her old house.   I took her out for a ride back to the east away from all the action.   The tornado had gone back up in the clouds when the storm crossed the path I took.   

It was really amazing that it struck where it did in Jarrell.   That subdivision at the time was in the middle of nowhere and as powerful as that storm was it was incredibly lucky that that few amount of people were killed.   If it had come through the middle of Temple or Belton it would have killed hundreds.   Sheltering in a bathroom or closet did nothing for those that were killed.   There was nothing left in that subdivision except for the foundations.  

[wood 11230]

17 hours ago, futureman said:

hagbard’s original thread is tough to top and has great info.  if you wanna check it out

http://www.shaggytexas.com/board/showthread.php/88313-Jarrell-970527

 

1 hour ago, Bill Brasky said:

On the day of the Jarrell tornado I was in Moody.   I heard on the radio there was a tornado warning nearby and could see the cloud but I got some bad info on where it was headed.   I thought it was headed for where I was at on the north side of Moody but it was going actually going to the southwest at a parallel angle to highway 317.    I started going south on 317 and then after a few minutes the radio said it was headed for where I was at on 317.   I had my truck doing 100+ mph going southbound, then I cut over to the east on FM 1237 to go pickup my grandmother and get her out of her old house.   I took her out for a ride back to the east away from all the action.   The tornado had gone back up in the clouds when the storm crossed the path I took.   

It was really amazing that it struck where it did in Jarrell.   That subdivision at the time was in the middle of nowhere and as powerful as that storm was it was incredibly lucky that that few amount of people were killed.   If it had come through the middle of Temple or Belton it would have killed hundreds.   Sheltering in a bathroom or closet did nothing for those that were killed.   There was nothing left in that subdivision except for the foundations.  

In my earlier post I didn't have much time to go into detail about what I saw out at Double Creek. Here's what I posted in HC's original thread mentioned above, with a couple of new edits for clarity or added detail...

Quote

 

"^^^You don't see pics like that from Jarrell because there was nothing left. Any of the Jarrell pics you see that show houses all fucked up aren't from the main path of the tornado.

So, yeah. I was at work at the fire station that day & we were following it all on tv as the storms hit Jarrell and the "smaller" twisters hit NW Austin. When I got off work the following day I threw my bunker gear in the back of my truck & headed out to Jarrell to see if I could help. I had always seen the rescue workers digging through the rubble after twisters and figured I'd be in there searching for potential living victims or recovering bodies from broken houses, etc. Man, was I in for a surprise.

I got to Jarrell and checked in downtown at the General Store that was kinda serving as an EOC. They told me who to talk to about getting out to the site. They told me not to bother with my bunker gear, because I wouldn't be needing it. I didn't ask why, but I thought that was kinda weird. So I drove out to the DPS checkpoint. Couldn't drive any further so I parked and got a ride from a trooper on out to Double Creek. We drove a little ways and then the trooper stopped the car and said I could probably "help those guys over there". I said OK and got out of the car. I was a little confused because he had dropped me in the middle of what appeared to be just a huge field with a couple of roads running here and there. Turns out this was Double Creek Estates. 

There was just nothing left. I mean, you see tornado wreckage on tv and none of that can prepare you for what had happened out there. Like HC said, asphalt was literally ripped up from the road. Linoleum was ripped off concrete floors. There were no cars, except out on the periphery of the tornado's path. There were very few plumbing fixtures left. Occasionally a house had a toilet or bathtub remaining. Basically though, every house was gone, all the way down to the foundation. The ground was spongy, as if freshly tilled or aerated. 

So, rather than looking for victims or bodies in the wreckage, we were doing what amounted to a FOD walk, forming a walking line and watching for pieces of human remains. It was surreal, to say the least. 

On the east side of the tornado's path, there was a house that was relatively intact. There were a couple of vehicles in the driveway, in good shape, and still upright. Right next to them, there was a dumptruck laying on its side. It looked like it had been parked there and had been blown over. I wondered how the other cars stayed put while the got damn dumptruck got blown over. The answer? The dump truck wasn't there before the storm. Nobody knew at the time where it had come from. People were found in trees. Cars were found in trees, completely twisted. Cars were found on the periphery, so twisted and mangled you couldn't even tell the make or model. There was a twisted (as in ... twisted & mangled beyond belief) 18-wheeler in the middle of a field. Nobody knew where it was from. There was a pond that had had all the water sucked out of it, or blown out, or whatever.

No doubt some of those folks did what they were always taught - got into the strongest parts of the house and hunkered down to ride out the storm. The problem is there was nothing out there strong enough to withstand it.

Like PHD noted earlier, the path of the tornado was very clear, with numerous houses just completely gone and  then others nearby that were pretty much ok. There was stuff left all over the ground, but nothing bigger than a couple square inches. It was kinda hard to take in and process the magnitude of what we were seeing."

 

 

Edited December 26, 2018 by wood

[Knoxtnhorn 6065]

I love tornados - minus the death and destruction.  

Iirc, Jarrell's tornado had multiple vortices inside the main funnel - hence the destruction.  And, as mentioned, it traveled the opposite direction (SSW).

I've been in 4.

As a baby, a Cat 5 hit outside Brownwood in or around '77.

Also one in Quanah in '78(?). Of course I don't recall either.

A Cat 1 hit behind our house in Knoxville in '11 about 2 months after the Alabama outbreak.  I woke up with my ears popping and the electricity out. It sounded like a high pitched whistle.  Our house wasn't damaged, but several within a few hundred feet had some destruction.

Funny story in 2000.  Wife (girlfriend at the time) came over to watch a movie.  We ordered a pizza.  Storm hit, power went out.  2 hours later, pizza arrived.  Guy said the tornado made him late.  Sure dude, whatever.  30 mins later, electricity comes on and Cnn has a live feed of the tornado destruction about 1/8 a mile away.  It hit a trailer park.  I had no idea a trailer park was in proximity, but the tornado found it.

[Knoxtnhorn 6065]

Our campus officer was one of the first responders to the Rowlett tornado 2 years ago.  Majority of deaths occured when the tornado blew cars off the turnpike where 30 meets Bush.  He said some of the bodies were half burried in the ground.  When attempting to pick them up, their bones had turned to dust and it was like lifting a heavy stuffed animal.  Nightmare fuel for sure.

[wood 11230]

7 minutes ago, Knoxtnhorn said:

I love tornados - minus the death and destruction.  

Iirc, Jarrell's tornado had multiple vortices inside the main funnel - hence the destruction.  And, as mentioned, it traveled the opposite direction (SSW).

I've been in 4.

As a baby, a Cat 5 hit outside Brownwood in or around '77.

Also one in Quanah in '78(?). Of course I don't recall either.

A Cat 1 hit behind our house in Knoxville in '11 about 2 months after the Alabama outbreak.  I woke up with my ears popping and the electricity out. It sounded like a high pitched whistle.  Our house wasn't damaged, but several within a few hundred feet had some destruction.

Funny story in 2000.  Wife (girlfriend at the time) came over to watch a movie.  We ordered a pizza.  Storm hit, power went out.  2 hours later, pizza arrived.  Guy said the tornado made him late.  Sure dude, whatever.  30 mins later, electricity comes on and Cnn has a live feed of the tornado destruction about 1/8 a mile away.  It hit a trailer park.  I had no idea a trailer park was in proximity, but the tornado found it.

Dude, trailer parks cause tornadoes. Duh.

I thought this was common knowledge...

[NorthLoop 14219]

16 minutes ago, Knoxtnhorn said:

 When attempting to pick them up, their bones had turned to dust and it was like lifting a heavy stuffed animal.  Nightmare fuel for sure.

Yeah no. That didn't happen. 

[DoobieWah 1453]

If you use GoogleEarth, you can navigate to Joplin, MO, click on the Clock Icon to look at prior views and click to June, 2011, look a couple of miles due south of downtown and see the aftermath of the May 22, 2011 EF5 that killed 158. The path it took is clear as day. Scary stuff.

[NorthLoop 14219]

Hell you can look at Joplin with the most current sat image and still make out the path 

[wood 11230]

17 minutes ago, NorthLoop said:

Yeah no. That didn't happen. 

I could be wrong, but I don't think he meant 'to dust' in a literal sense. We responded once to a crash where (spoiler tagged 'cause gross) ...

 

6 guys were thrown out of the back of a pickup truck & into some trees. Me and another guy were quickly moving around trying to triage people. First guy we walked up on, we tried to open his airway, but couldn't because basically all the bones in his head and neck had been shattered, rendering him basically a bag of broken bones. Difficult to get ahold of his jaw or anything to even try to open the airway.

Edited December 26, 2018 by wood

[NorthLoop 14219]

Ok yeah I can see that. That's rough stuff. 

[Knoxtnhorn 6065]

Yeah.  He didn't mean it literally.  I suppose getting thrown 40-50 feet off a bridge by a cat 4 tornado prob does some pretty bad things to your bones.  He and others had to have therapy sessions due to what they saw.

[Pescado_Rojo 19427]

The Jarrell storm day was the second "Green Sky" storm I've been in, so I knew it was going to be bad. I was working at the old Custom Sounds store on S. Congress on the corner of Congress and Academy. We were sitting in the show room up front watching it get darker and darker, then the sky got that green hue, and I told the other guys it was about to go down. That store had a glass front that wrapped around the north corner of the building, but didn't go very far back. The NE corner of the building had two 4'x8' glass sheets side by side with a little aluminum frame between them...like maybe 1/2 inch of aluminum with grooves to keep the glass from falling out. The back 40' of the store had no windows, and we had built two demo rooms in there, so they were very solidly built and well insulated. The straight line winds coming down congress were insane. No idea how high they got, but I've been in tropical storms and they felt higher than that and seemed to last 10 or 15 minutes. When shit started flying down Congress, I hustled everyone away from the windows into the back part of the store. At it's strongest, it seemed like the constant winds were north of 70, and it was pouring so hard you couldn't see across Congress. They were doing some work on Congress and they had the dirt catchers over the storm drain on the corner, so water was over the sidewalks in about 5 minutes. With the strongest wind gust, it blew hard enough to push the two 4'x8' windows in enough that it rained through the seem and soaked the couch across the room. When the worst of it passed, one of the installers waded out onto the sidewalk and pulled the filter off the sewer opening so water could drain, and the flood waters were off the sidewalk within about another 5 minutes.  Crazy day for sure. 

 

The first Green storm I was in was in Port Arthur when I was in Middle School. We were in post lunch recess outside goofing around when the sky turned the same green color. All the teachers ran outside and rounded us all up and made us all shelter in the halls. We're talking feet against the walls, head between our legs, hands over head shelter in place...like the drills. Scared the shit out of everyone. That was the storm that ripped the roof off the Jefferson County Airport, effectively ending commercial aviation at BPT for at least a decade. 

[El Diablo 4232]

12 hours ago, DoobieWah said:

If you use GoogleEarth, you can navigate to Joplin, MO, click on the Clock Icon to look at prior views and click to June, 2011, look a couple of miles due south of downtown and see the aftermath of the May 22, 2011 EF5 that killed 158. The path it took is clear as day. Scary stuff.

One of my nephews was an employee at the hospital there in Joplin but was not at work when it hit. He was part of the hospital's emergency response team though and so was on site pretty quickly after receiving notice. Their emergency response plan included a shipping container loaded with gear (2 way radios, hazmat suits, portable generators etc...)  and when he got there it was nowhere to be found, it was just gone. Their Life Flight helicopter was in the parking lot upside down, destroyed.

[yoshi 137]

I work with the guy with the beard in the pic below.  He and his son rode out a direct hit by the 2013 Moore OK F5 tornado in a bank vault.  They were running around doing errands that day and he went to the bank to deposit a check and the tornado came through.  Everyone in the bank huddled in the vault and the bank got leveled except for the vault.  Someone snapped this pic as they were all coming out.  He has a pic of his Yukon that was out in the parking lot.  Looked like a smashed tin can.  Talk about being in the right place at the right time.    Another coworker of mine wasn't so lucky though.  Lost his house and his daughter at the elementary school where 8 kids died.  

 

 

[Shoxthemonkey 1982]

This one ended up coming straight at my house but luckily it lifted and went north a few miles away. This video was shot 25 miles from my place. The news let us know about it with plenty of time to spare so my son and stood on our propane tank and watched it coming. I told him that we would take shelter when it reached the other side of our section, which we did. I stood at the top steps to the basement and watched it lift and keep going for about a mile and then it came down again. We jumped in my truck and headed west to see if we could help and we drove 3 miles before we saw any damage. We thought it was a mile away when we bolted. Very fortunate that there were only 2 fatalities with this but the property damage was staggering.

[williemackgarza 1826]

So some guys on here know, but in my previous life I was a leo up in Williamson County.
That day I was tasked with blocking all northbound traffic from Tx Hwy 29. I was an FTO and had a trainee and he was scared shitless, hell we both were.
We had a mutual aid radio channel and could here all the damage reports and tornado tracking reports real time.
The wind was higher than Ive ever been in.
Could see cars screeching to a halt behind me and folks gettin up under the Hwy 29 bridge for safety.
Couldnt see more than 10-20 yards infront of my patrol car and it was rocking and rolling side to side and up and down from the wind.
After it was over, we had to run up to jarrell to assist.
We were ready for a ton of rescues but were told this was no rescue mission, but a recovery.
We were to go house to house (slab to slab really) looking for remains. We had to walk thru knee high mud getting around. I get the bones to dust comment above, the inside of bodies had been literally sucked out of some bodies by the high pressure of the winds, think of letting the air out of a blown up beach ball.
The skin was bright red as blood had been sucked to the surface by the pressure. Cows were like empty sacks of bones as we walked by them. Toughest (if there was really just one) was finding a mom hugging what appeared to be a younger child in a bath tub. Was odd as the bodies were almost intact and looked peaceful, but there heads were light and felt empty with no weight. We picked up and bagged any piece of remains we could find.
The overall scene was described as looking like an atomic bomb went off. Nothing left of cars, structures, trees, just small piles of debris. The susnet that evening after the storm was probably one of the most clear and beautiful Ive ever seen.
My good friend was the jp for the precinct and worked non stop for the next 2 weeks helping ID bodies in a makeshift morgue in Jarrell. We assisted him daily and provided security.
Tough day. Was a tough time for the folks of Jarrell and the whole community.

[Sandman 3405]

30 minutes ago, williemackgarza said:

The skin was bright red as blood had been sucked to the surface by the pressure. Cows were like empty sacks of bones as we walked by them. 

I've lived in Oklahoma for the last 30+ years, so I've gotten used to dealing with tornados. The May 3rd 1999 monster was the worst. Still the biggest thing I've ever seen in real life. When it hit Tinker AFB, it went right through the horse stables. A sheriff's deputy I knew that worked the aftermath said they had to put down any horses that weren't killed during the storm, as the surviving animals had their eyeballs sucked out of their heads from the pressure. I guess they were running around blind and freaking out. Just thinking about it gives me the creeps.

[Jersey Man10 3538]

I was in the Lampasas area and the sky was so yellow it was weird.

[Brisketexan 105182]

I was a young lawyer working in downtown Austin.  We saw that the weather was getting really bad, and decided that we'd wait before we headed out for the day.  The managing partner and I went across the street to a bar in an old, solid stone building -- figured we'd be safe in there, and could enjoy a few beverages and the company of a waitress with a great irish accent.  And we did. We watched the unfolding news coverage on the TV there (it was quite spotty at first), and a report came in of one person killed in his vehicle, so after that, the breathless news anchor kept calling it "this KILLER tornado."  We had quite a few whiskey-fueled laughs at his breathless hyperbole.  Then, when everything cleared up and had passed, we headed home.

Where we turned on the news, which was just starting to get the full details of what had happened in Wilco.  Sobered me up right quick.

I've only been in one tornado - an F-0 to F-1 that hit downtown Houston early one morning.  A bunch of us were working a project and staying at the Hyatt.  Around 6:00, a loud-ass roar woke me up.  It passed, I went back to sleep for 30 minutes or so.  I turned the news on while I was getting dressed, and they were talking about tornado damage downtown, and you could see damage from their chopper.  I heard a helicopter outside, and looked out the window -- the chopper was filming some windows right across the street from me that had been blown out.  We went downstairs for a quick breakfast, and we were all talking about being awakened at 6:00, except for one guy who slept right through it.  Heavy sleeper, that guy.

[Doc Reeves 6434]

Yeah, I remember going down to help re-bury the bodies in the graveyard cuz they had been pulled up

[Doc Reeves 6434]

1 hour ago, Jersey Man10 said:

I was in the Lampasas area and the sky was so yellow it was weird.

Yup. Killeen

still remember that day

[Knoxtnhorn 6065]

3 hours ago, yoshi said:

I work with the guy with the beard in the pic below.  He and his son rode out a direct hit by the 2013 Moore OK F5 tornado in a bank vault.  They were running around doing errands that day and he went to the bank to deposit a check and the tornado came through.  Everyone in the bank huddled in the vault and the bank got leveled except for the vault.  Someone snapped this pic as they were all coming out.  He has a pic of his Yukon that was out in the parking lot.  Looked like a smashed tin can.  Talk about being in the right place at the right time.    Another coworker of mine wasn't so lucky though.  Lost his house and his daughter at the elementary school where 8 kids died.  

 

 

Spoiler

That one def gives me nightmares.  IIRC, the kids that died in the school actually drowned.  They had taken shelter in a basement or lower level of the building.  Water began pouring in and they were trapped.

^^Spoilered because very sad.