Oh my....such a mess! Isn't it crazy how a funnel can totally destroy one item, and something less than 20 feet away doesn't have any damamged what-so-ever!

Happy to hear their home was not damaged tho.

OMG! That just barely miss your Parents home. Yes, it could have been much worse.

I'm sorry for their loss, but God was watching over them.

Gayle

I'm sorry, that's a darn shame. Glad it skipped the house though.

How sad. Glad your folk's house escaped damage though.

have to say like the other folks, thank goodness it wasn't their home! i know it doesn't make it any less traumatic though...any damage is aweful...

A great attitude for sure. I will tell you this...I have lived in many places and been through many storms but never any as bad as the storms in OK..We loved OK so much and the people of OK so much, but retirement meant being able to play with amateur radio and that includes a tower in the air and you just can't keep them up and undamaged in OK ...so here we are in TX ...not perfect but better weather wise than OK..Glad no one was hurt.

What a shame to lose their nice greenhouse Rita. I know you are all so thankfull that was the worst of the damage.

I agree with Sandy. How odd it can wipe out something and a few feet away is untouched. I noticed the Martin house was still standing in one picture. I'm glad no one was hurt, and it wasn't as bad as 29 years ago.
Leslie

Wow! The pictures really tell the story. I may have missed it, but were any of the surrounding properties damaged?

Kim

What a shame! That's a big greenhouse . . . what did they grow in it?

That's a shame. I'm glad you're family is safe.

That is 'your' not 'you're'. This website needs correction abilities.

Glad family is ok!

Another possibility: Your greenhouse could have been hit with a microburst. Microbursts are associated with thunder storms and fronts. These have wreaked havoc with airplane landings and takeoffs. These are casued by shafts of rapidly descending cooled air and when the shaft hits the ground, it squirts outward at great speed, 70 mph and more. However, I would have expected a wider area of damage from a microburst, so this leaves a skipping tornado as the best possibility. Sometimes, a tornadic condition does not 'skip', but its funnel(s) from and break up at re-occuring periods.

It really made a mess out of your greenhouse and spring planting. I'm sorry about that.

Glad your family is ok. It could've been straight line winds too, saw them destroy a very old barn when I was living in Germany, it also destroyed the roof of our bowling alley on base, among other things in the area.

Yikes! I came home and slept a few hours, but the pictures are still just as haunting. What a long night... I was on the phone to sis and my folks from about 2:00 when she first called until after 4:00 -- then had coffee until daylight and went on over there.

They live just outside the city limits. The closest damage was to a barn about a mile from them. The emergency management guy was going from place to place as reports came in.

We live just southwest of my folks and slept right through the storm. You can bet I'll buy a NOAA storm radio this week! Like them, we wouldn't hear the sirens from town or from the AF base during a storm.

We bought the greenhouse about 10 years ago and didn't put it up until 2006. Within six months afterward, my dad had prostate cancer and a broken ankle. Finally he tinkered out there last summer and grew some stuff for them (not to sell), and this year he had tomato, onions, carrots, lettuce and some other stuff growing. He was sidelined most recently with a toe surgery and when he was hospitalized with that staph infection. I'll post a picture of the "salad" that used to sit in the SE corner of the greenhouse.

I still can't believe it...and I'm still so thankful that it didn't hit the house!

The lettuce crop...the dirt area on the right is where the pipe frame was in the ground.

Wow, I'm so sorry, Rita. What a loss.
Bt, I'm glad your family is all okay.

Ron

Oh My Goodness, Rita. I'm very sorry your folks got hit, but I'm really happy they are ok. It's that time of year again....joys of spring. Hugs to all.

Glad everyone is ok but sorry for the loss of your greenhouse. Wow what a mess!
Clare

What an awful thing. Hope you get a good night's sleep tonight. Get that NOAA ASAP.