Pretty much thinking the same, in order to really prove that church is a EF5 DI, we'd need plenty of information and I'm not even sure if that information is known or was considered for the building.
To be fair the bolts had to have been connected to the attached MBS to the northwest of the main church, that was an entirely separately rated building, those don't fit anywhere on a masonry church while also being connected to a concrete slab. Also for the Marshall rating, the wording says/leads me to believe that the 170mph rating was a preliminary assessment as to what is needed at the very minimum to destroy a large church such as this, even at lower bound, instead of a flat rating of the entire building. The current CARB DI is now max DOD LB 175, close to the 170 mentioned in the paper. Newer information than the Marshall paper states clearly that this building was definitely above the threshold of 170mph.
I thought the church was rated 188. Also this survey seems to assume a much smaller building than actually destroyed. That church was massive, and I doubt you"re sweeping it clean with anything less than 300+ winds.
As I mentioned in my reply the cabin was not frail. The 190 home in Bremen also used a metal roof for the same reasons. They're cheap, durable, and very low maintenance. It does not make the building frail. The cabin was a fully furnished home with a rustic aesthetic. Thats all. We shant make assumptions on building integrity because the trope of one detail is common in out buildings.
In fact I think I've seen in a couple damage training suggestions that metal roofs can often be a factor for going UB (in roof damage) and are often stronger than shingle roofs. I can't recall where I saw that exactly but will edit this if I remember,
This might just be my own personal opinion, but now looking back, I genuinely believe the 190 EF4 DI home in Bremen could have been rated EF5. Even though it was bizarrely constructed, It was decently built and had very violent contextual damage surrounding it.
Yup. Ethan Moriarty was my moment of truth regarding that DI. For context, he has stated that he sees Rochelle and Vilonia(!!!) as having proper EF4 ratings (IIRC), and here he was explicitly calling this house a likely EF5 DI. If a guy as conservative as him was convinced, then, well...
To put the Bremen home into perspective. The house was so solidly built the concrete filled CMU parameter the slab was anchored to failed first. Entire house and its slab was ripped up in one piece, exploded, then tossed 1000 yards downwind.
That’s just unreal damage there. The ground appears to have been scoured down to literal bare soil. And the fact that the tornado was moving at around 55-60 mph in Bremen makes this even more impressive.
Looks like a large propane tank (500-1000 Gallons when comparing to surroundings) to me. I have a friend in a high place and he works on a ton of these things for the company they work at. Typically they weigh anywhere from 950 lbs to 2000 lbs empty. And can weigh as much as 5000+ Lbs when full.
Jeez, that’s no joke. I wonder where that large propane tank originated from.
If I had to guess, I'd say a large home or maybe a motel. (you really dont need 1000 gallons of propane unless you have a need for widespread heating). It definetly came from a place that needed a lot of fuel for heat.
Yeah, most likely. Either way, pretty impressive feat of damage. Would love to know how far it was thrown and the origin.
I don't know if this is a great example, usually random fully debarked trees in forests like this are dead or diseased and the other trees In this grove don't look too insane. Though I'm Bremen there were multiple examples of large leafless trees being lofted in groups of 5 or more, windrowing of small bits of wood from obliterated treelines and completely stubbed hardwood trees with some being ripped out and tossed a decent ways, not a ton of debarking in this area or in the whole path really. It seems like there's some correlate with minimal debarking and winter time because debarking isn't very prevalent in most winter vio-tors I can think of.
There was some partial debarking in the hardest hit area of Bremen if I remember correctly.
