Fort Worth Tornado of 28 March 2000

Sam Hall

Hi all, this is my first post here, so be gentle :) My name is Samantha Hall (call me Sam) and after chasing in the States for the first time in 2005 I became well and truly hooked and my passion for severe weather etc grew. Living in the UK I have to get my fix ;) so now I am well and truly embedded in Editing for a meteorology Journal amongst other things - working towards desperately educating folk here about the seriousness of severe weather etc etc...

ANYWAY - I am writing a paper comparing damage to two tornado events (one in the USA and one in the UK) - for instance the London tornado which hit recently ripped roofs off houses and tore gable ends away - the houses were in a long line all bricked together, a terraced block of houses and I am hypothesising that had they been separated and individual houses, the wind would have perhaps been able to get round them more easily and done far more damage. Obviously we'll never know exactly what would have happened and without doppler radar we can never fully know how fast our tornadoes spin but I am just interested to see the comparisons purely on a damage basis (obviously I will go into the fact that supercell storms will produce violent tornadoes which last longer and are more powerful and we may never know truly what 'would' happen if this this and this was done) but I am just researching on a damage basis from a couple of tornado occurrances. I have chosen the London tornado (7 December 2006) and the Fort Worth tornado of 28 March 2000. I chose these as they both seemed to be recorded at a similar intensity (mph basis), both 'fairly' recent and I also found a damage analysis online for the Fort Worth event. It will be interesting to see how the intensity recordings compare with respect to the damage caused.

I was wondering if anyone else has any further info on the building design of houses in the States you could offer me? Obviously I've found lots on our buildings but now I need to look at the States' side. Also if anyone has any info on the Fort Worth tornado I'd be so grateful to you for your help and guidance.

Anyway hi all and I look forward to chatting to you guys - hi to everyone who I have chased with this year and last year :)... maybe you'll recognise who I am haha ;)
 
I lived in Fort Worth when the tornado happened (actually, I was coming back from the golf course and drove under the wall cloud without realizing it :eek:) and the buildings that the tornado hit were primarily downtown high-rises. Most were brick and mortar with the exception of the Bank One building which was an entirely glass facade (needless to say it did not survive).
 
WOW - thanks Michael for that info. I don't suppose you have any photos of any of the damage shortly after do you? I'd fully credit you naturally if you do have any I can nick :)

So what happened to the Bank building? Was it debris impact or wind in general or pressure do you know? Hope you don't mind all the questions.

Also, sorry if I posted this in the wrong forum section (I wasn't sure or not after I posted it).
 
Thanks Matthew - and you :)

And Peter - excellent, thanks - yeah that's the one - and yeah it definitely seemed to cause far more damage than the Harlesden one which is why I find it interesting they were both categorised at similar intensities (mph-ly speaking). I mean OK, really I guess I need to find an F2 intensity tornado to compare it to but ones with a lot of info on the damage analysis and damage surveys are hard to find... I bet you'll find one now LOL...

Thanks too Mike for those links - much appreciated :)
 
PS I also chose these two as they were both in built up areas - I want them to be as similar as poss (as reported) and then I am going to do my own comparison.
 
Sam,
I was at the site within one hour after it had happened. I was also there the next day to view the damage. If you have any questions in which I may able to answer for you please let me know. I actually live in a suburb of Ft. Worth and was working in Ft. Worth (downtown) close to the time it happened. I also witnessed the damage as the tornado again touched down in Arlington. Welcome to the board and and I hope I may be able to help.
Rodney:)
 
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