Tornado reminders

[Paul Pless]

There was a tornado in our community a month and a half ago. Initial touchdown was about three miles from here and then it tracked on the ground for about ten miles. It destroyed about thirty homes. Once a week or so I drive down the road its track paralleled. Its not the collapsed barns or houses with roofs covered by tarps or the trees that are twisted into splintered stumps that 'hit me'. Its the one patio with landscaping intact and swimming pool and adjacent deck; that has no complimentary house (it was practically swept cleanly away) that always strikes me as the most vivid reminder of that day. Fortunately no lives lost nor even any serious injuries.

[ccmanuals]

The images and things I saw on the Gulf coast in 1969 after Camille hit are with me till this day. All along the gulf coast highway in Mississippe you would see large concrete slabs with pipes sticking up. When you looked closer you could see sometimes up to 100/150 yards from the slab a massive pile of individual boards. This was the house.

[John of Phoenix]

I spent lots of years living in tornado country - TX, OK, AL, LA. You should see how the destruction looks from the air.

I know trailer parks are the butt of lots of jokes but that's often where you'd see the true strangeness of tornados. The ground swath would be going one direction then swerve 90* to head for the trailers. Going through the park, some would be splintered into toothpicks and tin foil while an adjacent trailer would be undamaged while others simply got knocked over. Totally unpredictable.

[Iceboy]

I spent last weekend with a chainsaw clearing the roads on my property as a result of this storm last year.
http://www.crh.noaa.gov/dlh/?n=1jul2011_winddamge
Fourth row of pictures, the one in the center is one of my places. The clearing is where I park my trailer when hunting. It was due to be thinned this year. Won't get squat for timber value now as there is a glut of wood that is only fit for pulp now. I have to say that clearing wind downed trees is one of my least favorite and most dangerous tasks.