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The Kitchen Table

Who Has Been Thru a Tornado?? What was it like?

13 years ago

I've been fortunate. I saw 2 small waterspouts at the same time once in Clearwater which were no threat to land. During hurricane Jeanne a dark funnel cloud with a descending tornado was heading towards us, but suddenly went back up without touching the ground and disappeared. It must feel awful to see/hear a tornado heading your way!!

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Comments (10)

glenda_al
13 years ago
I saw a waterspout in CLearwater, as well.

I've been mighty lucky not to be in the direct path of a tornado, but certainly been around them,lots.

I did experience wind shear, sitting in the bathtub, hearing it rip part of my house roof off. That's scary!

DS and wife live close to downtown B'ham, and they left the area to go to a friends basement and waited the tornado out Thankfully DS's home was not in the direct path and they were ok when they got home.
susie53_gw
13 years ago
Yes, as a young child my family was at a lake cottage. Right at dark a tornado went through. It truly does sound like a freight train .. It passes by very quickly. I remember my dad holding the door shut, windows breaking and hearing things crashing.. I can remember it as if it happened an hour ago. Once daylight came houses were flattened, boats were up in trees, clothes flapping in the wind, debris was everywhere. There were pontoons that were never found. There were toilets and furniture just sitting out in the middle of yards. My grandfather had a 2 X 4 drove through his windshield and into his front seat. We were adding on a room at the back and didn't have the roof or windows in. We believe this broke the wind for us.

I would not wish this on anyone, ever.. It is one of the scariest things to have to go through.
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ravencajun Zone 8b TX
13 years ago
while living in Oklahoma several of them, had one go right over the top of our house hit the big oak in our back yard take the top off of it, scatter all our outdoor stuff everywhere then touched down several times down the road taking out trees and some homes had pretty serious damage.

We were on one of our Harley's trying to beat a bad storm home, the sky was that very erie green color that is a sure sign of impending tornado and sure enough we saw the funnel form in a field a few miles from us, then the big hail started pounding us. It was extremely scary but we did make it home safely but with a few hail dings.

The really really bad one that hit Moore, Ok some years back literally took my best friends entire neighborhood off the planet, gone nothing but concrete pads and some debris, that one was a horrible thing.

There were a few other smaller ones we watched go by.

Living in South Louisiana also been through a few hurricanes, in fact Hurricane Audrey hit when I was very small child and took the entire top story off my grandparents big farmhouse and we were all in the house at the time. To many of those very close calls with hurricanes, I hope to never have to deal with that again but now that I am in the Houston area it could happen.
cynic
13 years ago
When I was a kid we had severe weather warnings out. A cousin had been out fishing and stopped by to drop off some fish. My dad told him to stick around with the weather the way it was and we'd clean and have a fish dinner. This is the only time I remember the weather being so bad we actually went to the basement. My cousin went out to his car to get another fish scaler and came barreling into the house yelling "Stay right where you are - there's a tornado heading right for us!". We lived on a sort of "hill" or higher area. The tornado headed up the hill and just jumped over us. Did a lot of damage on each side of us but nothing much where we were.

I have as much respect for straight-line winds as I do for tornadoes. Wind can cause a lot of damage and some feel straight-line can be more dangerous.
paula_pa
13 years ago
We had a tornado in our town a couple of years ago. It happened very fast. I remember driving home and there was a very short hard rain. I don't even recall the wind being especially strong or anything. Then the sun came out. I had no idea that I had just missed the tornado which ran right across my route (behind me) until I was watching the news a while later and they were talking about it.
I don't think anyone saw it coming. One woman was killed when a tree fell on her car as she waited at the stop light. There was property damage but no buildings or homes where actually destroyed.
Kathsgrdn
13 years ago
No, and I hope I never do.
oldgardener_2009
13 years ago
Gosh, those are scary stories! I hope to never be in a tornado.

We had what they called a subtropical cyclone here in 1962, not as bad as the tornadoes in the news, but it was very unusual for this area. We huddled together in a corner and listened to things hitting the house outside. The wind toppled large trees and blew down all the old barns in this area, including ours. I was so shocked to see it the next morning.

My mother and sister were in town at the grocery store. They all ran to the back of the store because the front windows blew out. The store's sign landed next to my sister's car.

My friend's parents were both killed. I believe there were 46 people in total killed.

Here's a picture of our barn after the storm:

{{!gwi}}
jemdandy
13 years ago
I've been near two tornados. The first was when I was a child on a samll farm in southern Illinois. The storm came at night when everyone waw asleep. It woke me. I heard the screaming increase in intensity as the storm approached. It passed overhead with no touchdown, but hte strange screaming wind was horrifying being that we were in a wood frame house with no basement. There was no foundation. The house sat om small piles of rock. There was no place to go except to hunker down and hope. I was relieved to her the storm recede. The next day, we could see small amounts of damage in the woods just south of the house.

The second time was in Wisconsin. We had just moved into a new 2 story house. One night at about 9 pm, the infamous Mayville tornado passed about 1 mile west of our house. It was raining too hard to see the storm. Visibility was ziltch, but I could hear the rushing sound of the funnel as I peered outside to see if I should go to our "safe" place in the basement. (That safe place was under a very heavy work bench against the west wall.) I saw a flash in the sky as the funnel cut across a power line. Later the next day, I would see that it had taken out half of a barn just before crossing the power line.

Th funnel continued south and then turned eastward toward Brookfield. It crossed a lumber yard that had truckloads of lumber stored in outside sheds. The tornado cleaned out the sheds taking all the lumber and scattering it over the next 5 miles. A 4 mile row of 2x4 stuck in the ground and into other objects marked the storm's path.

Luckily, the funnel track was narrow, but very long. The weather service had gotten surprised by this one since it tracked the "wrong" way. It had tracked south from Mayville then east into Brookfield for a distance of 50 miles. This is a very long track for a single Wisconsin tornado.
susie53_gw
13 years ago
Just a couple years ago my husband was going to our home in the southern part of our state. He was driving down the highway and it got really dark and it was pouring down rain and he had to pull off the road. A strong wind came up and he felt his trailer he was pulling behind his truck being lifted up off the ground. It was no more here and it was gone. He later found out it was a tornado that went through. On his drive back home a few days later he saw all the damage. Stopped and took some pictures. Buildings were taken down, trees broke off and a few vehicles were turned over. You could just see the path that it took across the country. Luckily it missed a small town just down the road. Thankfully no one was hurt..
jannie
13 years ago
I grew up in Western New York , not known for tornadoes. As a child I saw both a "dust devil" (mini tornado) in a field. And a small water spout. They were both just oddities. but demonstrated to me the tricks of weather.

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