Tornado Thread

MelroseHawkins

MelroseHawkins

Well-Known Member
It's tornado season, although anymore, it seems like it is always tornado season. I thought I'd start a thread for anybody to relive stories about tornadoes. Anybody been in one, lost a home, encountered one on vacation, horror stories, etc.. I'm 50 1/2 years old and I personally have never seen one. I kind of would like to but would want to do it safely. Anybody storm chase?

Anybody see any? Describe what you saw or heard. What you were feeling. How close.
 
The best town in Iowa, Fort Dodge, got walloped by a big one right before I was born. It ruined the TV station and it never came back on the air. I would probably be more successful than George Clooney had I had the opportunity to hone my skills on the air as a youth, but alas it wasn't meant to be.

One time in 1998 I was hanging at my place on Euclid in Neck Moines and it was raining like hell. My buddy was playing Playstation and looked outside and yells "dude, look outside." The whole damned neighborhood had turned into a lake. It was unreal. We each packed a trashbag full of stuff and the Playstation and then waded through the water to get the hell out of the house. Not even 10 seconds after we got outside the tornado sirens went off. It was dark as all hell, but no tornado actually touched down. There was a Mexican restaurant, I think it was called El Aguila Real, probably on Beaver and Euclid, that let us wait out the storm there. The flood busted the phone lines and they rewired them so that their phone rang to my house and my phone rang to their restaurant. I would answer, give the people my number and tell them to call that number to get the restaurant. That lasted a few days.

Irregardless, I was just looking at the map to find the name of the Mexican place but it looks like they razed everything that was on the low ground there near Euclid and Beaver. Must have had more flood issues. While looking at the map, I noticed Porky's was gone. Did they go under?
 
okeefe4prez said:
The best town in Iowa, Fort Dodge, got walloped by a big one right before I was born. It ruined the TV station and it never came back on the air. I would probably be more successful than George Clooney had I had the opportunity to hone my skills on the air as a youth, but alas it wasn't meant to be.

One time in 1998 I was hanging at my place on Euclid in Neck Moines and it was raining like hell. My buddy was playing Playstation and looked outside and yells "dude, look outside." The whole damned neighborhood had turned into a lake. It was unreal. We each packed a trashbag full of stuff and the Playstation and then waded through the water to get the hell out of the house. Not even 10 seconds after we got outside the tornado sirens went off. It was dark as all hell, but no tornado actually touched down. There was a Mexican restaurant, I think it was called El Aguila Real, probably on Beaver and Euclid, that let us wait out the storm there. The flood busted the phone lines and they rewired them so that their phone rang to my house and my phone rang to their restaurant. I would answer, give the people my number and tell them to call that number to get the restaurant. That lasted a few days.

Irregardless, I was just looking at the map to find the name of the Mexican place but it looks like they razed everything that was on the low ground there near Euclid and Beaver. Must have had more flood issues. While looking at the map, I noticed Porky's was gone. Did they go under?
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This is the best stream of consciousness evar.

Well, I ended up moving to SoCal and there's no water here at all. Huge water restrictions coming. I'd rather have tornadoes.
 
okeefe4prez said:
The best town in Iowa, Fort Dodge, got walloped by a big one right before I was born. It ruined the TV station and it never came back on the air. I would probably be more successful than George Clooney had I had the opportunity to hone my skills on the air as a youth, but alas it wasn't meant to be.

One time in 1998 I was hanging at my place on Euclid in Neck Moines and it was raining like hell. My buddy was playing Playstation and looked outside and yells "dude, look outside." The whole damned neighborhood had turned into a lake. It was unreal. We each packed a trashbag full of stuff and the Playstation and then waded through the water to get the hell out of the house. Not even 10 seconds after we got outside the tornado sirens went off. It was dark as all hell, but no tornado actually touched down. There was a Mexican restaurant, I think it was called El Aguila Real, probably on Beaver and Euclid, that let us wait out the storm there. The flood busted the phone lines and they rewired them so that their phone rang to my house and my phone rang to their restaurant. I would answer, give the people my number and tell them to call that number to get the restaurant. That lasted a few days.

Irregardless, I was just looking at the map to find the name of the Mexican place but it looks like they razed everything that was on the low ground there near Euclid and Beaver. Must have had more flood issues. While looking at the map, I noticed Porky's was gone. Did they go under?
Click to expand...


Damn, I grew up on Euclid
 
MelroseHawkins said:
It's tornado season, although anymore, it seems like it is always tornado season. I thought I'd start a thread for anybody to relive stories about tornadoes. Anybody been in one, lost a home, encountered one on vacation, horror stories, etc.. I'm 50 1/2 years old and I personally have never seen one. I kind of would like to but would want to do it safely. Anybody storm chase?

Anybody see any? Describe what you saw or heard. What you were feeling. How close.
Click to expand...
I was close in 2014. Ninety minutes after my wife and I ate supper at Las Palmas in Platteville an F-2 tornado crossed business highway 151 only a couple hundred yards up the road.

Roundtree Commons, where my then ten year old was attending a basketball camp, was directly hit, and there was significant widespread damage on the UW Platteville campus.
 
Northside Hawk said:
I was close in 2014. Ninety minutes after my wife and I ate supper at Las Palmas in Platteville an F-2 tornado crossed business highway 151 only a couple hundred yards up the road.

Roundtree Commons, where my then ten year old was attending a basketball camp, was directly hit, and there was significant widespread damage on the UW Platteville campus.
Click to expand...

I was at an intersection in Burlington, my wife and kids in the car, it was an ugly sky, the wind started up and I noticed a sheet of plywood from a construction sight get picked up and that sucker blew around us in a complete circle, other stuff was getting blown around too. A cop at the intersection stepped out of his car looking at the sky, radio in hand, and then the sirens started.

I never saw a funnel, but the sky directly above me was churning something fierce. I quickly remembered a half dozen prayers from my parochial school days, got back in my car and drove off.

Not sure if it was a tornado or just some freak ass wind, but that's as close as I ever want to get.
 
I've seen something like 17 in my life. It is so flat where I live you can see a long way. A couple of stories.... I was just married, back from honeymoon and living in Albert Lea. There were warnings in Iowa to the SW but the power went out... no sirens. We lived in a walk-out basement apartment just west of the lake. The walkout was on the north side of the house. Trees were bending over and I tried to get a picture of the tornado out over the lake. My bride grabbed my arm and I missed it as it went between trees. Houses were completely gone especially on the north shore. One house was intact, but it was sitting on the opposite side of the swimming pool.

Another story was when the wife (who totally gets freaked out by storms) calmly said, "I think there is a tornado coming." She was so calm I said, "OK, be there in a bit honey". Maybe ten seconds later she said, "There is a tornado" just as calmly as before. My response, "OK honey, just about done". With a bit more emotion she said, "We (she and kids) are going to the crawl space". Just then the sirens went off and I looked out the door and limbs/trees were being tossed around about 3 blocks away in the woods.

I still to this day (about 12 years now), shake my head about how come she was.

As a kid coming back from IC, a tornado hit Jack Hamilton's clubhouse trapping people inside with injuries. Had a front row seat from our car.
 
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MelroseHawkins said:
It's tornado season, although anymore, it seems like it is always tornado season. I thought I'd start a thread for anybody to relive stories about tornadoes. Anybody been in one, lost a home, encountered one on vacation, horror stories, etc.. I'm 50 1/2 years old and I personally have never seen one. I kind of would like to but would want to do it safely. Anybody storm chase?

Anybody see any? Describe what you saw or heard. What you were feeling. How close.
Click to expand...
I have done chasing from time to time. Not obsessed with it but if out in a storm in a car, I'd rather know where it is. Seen about 17 in my life. The wife doesn't like it. We don't have a basement and I've told her before I'd rather be in control of where I am in the path than sitting and waiting. Did have one form right above me once. Wasn't chasing, but I knew it was going to be close.
 
Dadman said:
I was at an intersection in Burlington, my wife and kids in the car, it was an ugly sky, the wind started up and I noticed a sheet of plywood from a construction sight get picked up and that sucker blew around us in a complete circle, other stuff was getting blown around too. A cop at the intersection stepped out of his car looking at the sky, radio in hand, and then the sirens started.

I never saw a funnel, but the sky directly above me was churning something fierce. I quickly remembered a half dozen prayers from my parochial school days, got back in my car and drove off.

Not sure if it was a tornado or just some freak ass wind, but that's as close as I ever want to get.
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Was it 83 when a tornado ripped up highway 61?
 
HawkGold said:
Was it 83 when a tornado ripped up highway 61?
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Yep, that wasn't the tornado I was referring to in my post, but yeah, tornado tracked south to north on 61 - hit all the burger joints on Hiway 61- Wendy's hardest hit-some injuries there when the plate glass blew inward- I was at Mickey D's picking up some chow (back before such things as high cholesterol) and went home right before it hit- sky was black to the south, but no sirens, just figured it was a storm coming. Sirens went off after it hit. Go figure.
 
Dadman said:
Yep, that wasn't the tornado I was referring to in my post, but yeah, tornado tracked south to north on 61 - hit all the burger joints on Hiway 61- Wendy's hardest hit-some injuries there when the plate glass blew inward- I was at Mickey D's picking up some chow (back before such things as high cholesterol) and went home right before it hit- sky was black to the south, but no sirens, just figured it was a storm coming. Sirens went off after it hit. Go figure.
Click to expand...

Yea, I like it back in the day when there was no cholesterol to deal with!
 
MelroseHawkins said:
Yea, I like it back in the day when there was no cholesterol to deal with!
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I was a property insurance adjuster back then, by the end of the day I had 17 commercial buildings to inspect. Weirdest thing I saw was a 2x4 driven clean through a truck tire. Wish I still had the photo. I had one guy who was injured at a restaurant keep calling me, wanting $$ for pain and suffering. I didnt give him any money, but I gave him some advice- don't stand in front of plate glass windows to watch a tornado. He got mad, but he quit calling.
 
Dadman said:
I was a property insurance adjuster back then, by the end of the day I had 17 commercial buildings to inspect. Weirdest thing I saw was a 2x4 driven clean through a truck tire. Wish I still had the photo. I had one guy who was injured at a restaurant keep calling me, wanting $$ for pain and suffering. I didnt give him any money, but I gave him some advice- don't stand in front of plate glass windows to watch a tornado. He got mad, but he quit calling
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I grew up near Charles City. There were horrific tornadoes that tore thru CC 3 yrs before I was born. When I grew up there was always a Clark station in town that had on display out in front of the station a tire from that May 1968 tornado that had a 2 X 4 impaled in it. They cut off the ends of the board and put it on display . That is crazy shit. Also, there were other reports like straw that would be embedded in wood fence posts, etc.. I think Oelwein got hit that same day as well. The CC tornadoes were prob F5 I think.
 
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