1986-07-28: Sioux City Iowa tornadoes

[Ryan McGinnis]

I didn't chase this one as I was only 8 years old when it happened -- but I remember this one being a whopper, at least as far as Sioux City was concerned. It ended up ripping apart a good deal of the local power plant, which cost an enormously expensive (in 1986 dollars) $30,000,000 to fix. I also found this old archived Storm Track article:

http://www.stormtrack.org/archive/1017.htm

Anyone here out and about chasing that storm on that day?

 

[Damon Scott Hynes]

Saw the tower from Omaha but I was otherwise engaged. This was one of those 'magic bullet' or 'black swan' tornadoes, like the one that capsized the "Whipporwill" in Kansas in the 70's.

One mile deviation in it's path and it's would have been a middling F-2!

 

[Tim Marshall]

An expensive tornado

That destroyed power plant was one of our specific damage assessment jobs at Haag Engineering. One of our engineers (not me) spent about a year monitoring reconstruction of the plant. tm

 

[John Paulson]

IIRC the storm entered the far western parts of the Rochester MN DMA ABC station(KAAL) as I swear I can remember weather interuptions to Monday Night Baseball