Your Worst Tornado or Severe Weather Experience

[Erik Burns]

Well with all of us chasers always being in and around severe weather. What is the worse severe weather situation you had ever been in? It can be anything. Maybe it was when you were still a kid at home, on vacation or out chasing?

Mine was this year on April 9th while chasing near Breckenridge Tx.

We flew north on 183 torwards Breckenridge and then we were about 3 miles south of Breckenridge. I told my chase partner to stop driving when I saw the couplet on the new velocity scan JUST TO THE WEST OF US. NOT AN INSTANT LATER the semi in front of us blew over and THEN TREES and DEBRIS STARTED FLYING ALL AROUND US. We couldn't see any condensation funnel all we could see was horizontal rainbands being blown into a white mist. I told Ricky to point the car into the wind as best as possible. We thought we were going to die!!!! After it passed we waited a few minutes to catch our breath and have a couple of smokes. We couldn't believe what just happend to us. Based on the position of the semi and the fallen trees we were nailed by the ESE side of the tornado.Almost a direct hit.

I learned alot that day about HP monsters. It was my fault for letting my gaurd down and not properly navigating around the storm. A lesson to never forget.

 

[Adam Lucio]

10-18-07...Nappanee, IN.

We were only about a minute behind this EF-3 tornado and were never in any real danger ourselves...but in order to stay on the chase I ran over a few pieces of debris...once we called off the chase we decided to head back into the town to help out.

My drivers side rear tire flew off about a mile outside of town. We sat there as ambulance after ambulance and emergency vehicle flew past us. The feeling in my stomach was sick, we wanted to help so bad but we couldn't do anything but sit there and wait for help ourselves.

 

[Shane Adams]

Most of you have probably heard my story about the May 5, 2002 nocturnal RFD blast associated with a tornado near the Lesley/Lakeview, TX area. Basically, winds high enough to push our small truck across dry pavement, with a single gust taking all three magnet mount antennas off at once. The clamp-mounted "rabbit ears" on our passenger door frame were bent over at around 140 degrees from normal, pointing down at the ground when it was over. A power pole across from us snapped and flew into our truck, striking it where the cab meets the windshield...I remember watching the cross-arm sliding down the windshield, onto the hood, and off onto the ground in front of us. The highest gust lifted our back wheels off the ground and moved us sideways about 3-4 feet. Being it was night, there really isn't much to 'see' except the power flashes up ahead from the tornado and the lights of the other cars ahead of us (which move suddenly to the right as we get lifted and turned; my vidcam was mounted on a tripod). Also, you can hear the "Wizard of Oz" style howling winds when the strongest winds hit us.

If this had happened during daylight hours, I could've retired off my video.

 

[Dennis Sherrod]

Smithfield Tornado

April 4, 1977
This day is Nightmares, Good Memories, Bad Memories, and the biggest spark that started my interest in weather.
I was a brand new rookie, 21 year old kid cop, with about 3 weeks worth of experience and waiting on another job opening in Florida. A F5 hit an area of Birmingham called Smithfield shortly after 3PM. Myself and my partner were one of the first 15 of so emergency personnel to respond / arrive at the area. The entire area was almost completely leveled. There was virtually no one walking anywhere. There were injured and dead almost anywhere we walked and looked.
This one storm killed 22 people and injured over 150 in this area.
We found injured people. We found dead people. We even found one woman who was trapped alive, but died before she could be extricated.
One memory sticks in my mind that will never leave me. We were walking through the rubble of a house. It was hard at times to see where each house should have been. I heard a noise that was more like a mouse. I went toward the sound and found a very young infant child laying naked in the rubble. This child had a splinter of wood approximately 5 - 6 inches long embedded in one eye. I scooped the child up and grabbed pieces of cloth wrapping this baby. Off I went down the road trying to find someone that was fire department or some other medical personnel. I gave the child to a fireman and went back searching again. This was one of the very few that were actually removed alive from the rubble this day. We found plenty of people dead and injured that day and into the night.
I kept up with the little child until I moved to Florida the next year. This was the only member of the immediate family and relatives that lived. The Mother and child's sister were killed and were carried over 200 yards away. They were found much later in a ravine where they had been thrown. The other relatives died nearby. Animals and humans alike were dismembered.
I had never experienced anything like this in my short, unexperienced 21 years of life at that time. I had experienced two other much smaller tornadoes the previous few years, but nothing of this magnitude.
Attached are a couple of pictures of this area that are courtesy of a friend of mine: Retired NWS J B Elliott. JB toured the area with Dr. Fujita the following day and was also the live voice of the tornado announcements at that time.
I remembered seeing this Official looking and acting man, but never realized who or what he was for some time to come. Later, I remember thinking that was pretty cool that they would "grade a tornado after that man."
The following is a quote from the official NWS report on that day concerning Dr. Fujita and JB:
"Many people do not know that the famous Dr. Theodore Fujita, for whom the Tornado Fujita Intensity Scale is named after, followed this massive tornado and supercell thunderstorm from an airplane. After tracking the storm, Dr. Fujita surveyed the damage and toyed with the idea of rating the Smithfield tornado an F6.
All of the images shown below were taken by J. B. Elliott, former Meteorological Technician with the National Weather Service (NWS), now retired from the NWS but living in the Birmingham area."

The first picture is a picture of the immediate area where I found the child. The best I have been able to tell, just out of the camera's view on the bottom right is the rubble where I found this child and the partial house at the top of the street is where I carried the baby and gave to the fireman. This partial house was the so-called command post and first aid area.

 

[Darrin Rasberry]

What's incredibly sad is that's not the only F5 that hit Birmingham. It didn't even take a generation for it to happen again.

For me it's one word: Parkersburg.

 

[Kathryn Piotrowski]

Hoisington KS F4

Oh let’s see…Hoisington F4...yeah…the time that I took my MOTHER storm chasing with me in 2001 before I even had a clue as to what I was doing but knew enough to at least not get us killed. But I really think that my angels (I have two..BTW… that tag team off of one another because I keep them pretty busy) should receive the credit for the not getting killed part.
We started the day just going to visit relatives in Western Oklahoma and detoured when storms developed out in the panhandle and we started going North near Cleo Springs, OK. This was prior to XM, prior to HAM radio, prior to GPS, simply going by maps, poor cell coverage, and a TV in my chase vehicle with the meteorologist near Wichita (I think) saying “oh the cells really nothing to be concerned aboutâ€￾ but she would never zoom in on the radar and I couldn’t really tell what was going on…The last phone call I got was from Brian Stertz telling me there was a tornadic supercell to my west. I give a detailed account on my website http://www.twisterchasers.com/2001_severe_weather.htm#Hoisington
This was written back in 2001 so to elaborate a little bit more…when we got as far as Hoisington, Ks it wasn’t raining…the wind wasn’t blowing, there weren’t any sirens…it was late we were tired and really really hungry…I see a pizza hut up ahead and just as I turned toward the pizza hut, hail began hitting my car…I looked to my Southwest and GIGANTIC sickening green power flashes were coming right towards us. I said “****â€￾ and turned the car around racing back towards the south end of Hoisington…The wind was picking up alright and whipping the trees around and apart…pulled up onto the sidewalk in downtown Hoisington and watched from there. It was pretty frightening…needless to say…I got REALLY serious about my chase equipment from that moment on and read every flippin’ book I could get my hands on.
Just yesterday, someone recognized me from a recent article about Project Storm Relief in the Tulsa newspaper, my mom was with me…they asked her “don‘t you worry about her?â€￾ she says “yes a little bit, but she knows what she’s doing“ …gosh…I felt really proud that my mom had such confidence in me.. then they say “have you ever gone out with her?â€￾ She stood there…paused.. and said “yesâ€￾ (a very thoughtful, long YEEESSSSS) and they picked up on it and said “would you ever go out with her again?â€￾ (Long pause) she says “Maybeâ€￾. My interpretation was hmmmm I think that might mean NO WAY IN %&**#&*^ !

 

[Dennis Sherrod]

A Few More Photos

I found a few more photos from the April 4, 1977 tornado I posted about last night.
In the 1st picture, this gentleman posed in the exact spot he crouched down in his basement. He had only some minor head injuries (see bandage on his head). Notice behind the debris pile is the basement floor. All the debris was shoved up against where he was seeking safety.

In the 2nd picture is then Birmingham NWS Forecaster Bill Hermann who was working that day as the tornado struck. Notice the one partial brick wall on the left, behind him. That is all that was left of a house.

In the 3rd picture notice all of the houses on this side of the street are completely destroyed, yet the Ford Gran Torino sitting there does not have a single window broken out.

In the 4th picture is the Sanctuary of the First Baptist Church. Amazing photo in that the left brick wall is mostly gone and all the pews and other items were completely taken out, leaving virtually bare floors with only minor debris left behind. Also notice the curtains still hanging at the Baptismal.

 

[Erik Burns]

Incredible photos Dennis. I have never experienced anything on a scale like that. I always find it amazing how you can have total destruction like that then have a car without any windows broken and the church with the curtains still hanging. Just amazing. The gentleman in the rubble where he was sitting is very lucky to be alive. Somebody was watching over him.

 

[Susan Strom]

Scariest for me were:

Date: September 1994
Time: early eve
Type: Northern American Monsoon desert storm with tornado warning
Direction: from the south (Arizona central deserts, Mexico)
Place: Scottsdale, Arizona
Conditions: Intense constant lightning, high winds, torrents
Reported: 600-1000 trees taken at Camelback corridor
Note: I saw CG afterimages in my eyelids for an hour. This is the storm that got me started.

Date: September 2007
Time: approx 10pm-1am
Type: North Amer. Monsoon-powered convective mountain storm
Direction: from the north (Colorado Plateau)
Place: Forest Lakes, Arizona
Conditions: Extremely hazardous storm, constant cloud-to-ground lightning on mountain cliff promontories, torrents of rain, horizontal rain/wind blowing heavy forest debris into roadway.
Note: Extremely severe lightning threat; hydroplaning danger. After some attempts, I aborted the chase to seek shelter as it became life-threatening.