March 28, 1984 tornadoes in NC, SC,Ga.

[MG Jennings]

On the above date a swarm of tornadoes hit in NC, SC and Ga. A total of 57 were killed and 1248 injured. Primarily all injuries/deaths were in NC-SC with 42 deaths being NC. There were 13 "large tornadoes" per the NWS of which 10 were f3 or f4. Raleigh, NC NWS has a good summary of the storms.

The night of the storms I recall watching the Durham,NC ,ch 11, 6pm news/weather and the weatherman was very worried. He said folks really needed to pay attention that night because he had "never seen the pressure so low". I do recall how unusually warm and windy it was late in the early evening. Somewhere around 7-8pm, storms began in central NC and my wife and I headed to the basement. I remember two distinctive things about the night..1) The winds were very strong and the clouds seem to be right off the ground..2) my brother in law kept calling about a pending fishing trip and each time I had to leave my security to answer the phone. He was totally oblivious to the impending danger & only wanted to know the best lures to bring. The next day, all the news was regarding the number killed in Red Springs, NC.

 

[Bob Hartig]

I remember that outbreak by virtue of reading in the papers about a town in South Carolina named McColl that got hit by a tornado over two miles wide. The thought of a tornado that large just blew my mind. Still does, for that matter.

 

[MG Jennings]

I heard there were a couple of wide ones but didn't know that wide....can you imagine! I do know the spring outbreak last year had one in Raleigh that was reported at .4 miles wide.....personally, both are hard to imagine. Allot of folks don't realize it but NC has a fair number of tornadoes each year.

 

[Bruce Torrens]

At that time I was 8 living a few miles west of Warsaw, NC in Duplin county. An F4 touched touched down approx 8:15pm 6 miles northeast of Clinton in neighboring Sampson county, putting the touchdown about 5-6 miles northwest of us, and raced northeast at 65mph through northwestern Duplin and southern Wayne and then on to Lenoir, Greene, and Pitt counties. The twister stuck Calypso, destroying a recently built brick homes/or apartments off the east side of old US117. Then it moved on and struck southeastern Mount Olive, destroying homes and damaging the community college there. After that I believe I read the storm cycled and produced another F4 that hit Snow Hill and then Greenville, killing 13. I think I remember the particular night but cant be sure. I recall a particualrly intense and scary night in the early 80s in which my dad and I's attention was outside out front window. Our trees in the yard were bent in winds, and lightning was constant. I'm confident this memory was likely that night due to the fear associated with it. I don't recall any hail falling, which makes sense as we would have been just south/southeast of the RFD and maybe even possibly in the southern tip of the RFD. Or we may have just been in very strong inflow but I remember lightning was constant and the tress were bending over. My older sister at that time was pregnant with my nephew and lived west of Faison, NC off highway 403 between Faison and Clinton. People were killed in Keener on 403. She heard the roar of the tornado, and assumed it probably passed by within a half mile or so and says it sounded like a train.