Barnesville, GA EF3 - April 28, 2011
Path length: 30.82
Fatalities: 2
Injuries: 22
The tornado produced EF2-EF3 damage for most of its path but as it crossed Old Milner Road it became tremendously powerful. A forest was razed to the ground, and trunks were mashed together in a convergent pattern. A small core of suction vortices tore much of the bark from trees and left cycloidal markings in the grass. The article explicitly prohibits sharing images from certain contributors so I had to find Truman Boyle's aerial imagery myself. All images from the video were screenshotted myself. Here's the link:
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Damage around the Grove street area was especially intense. A family sheltered in a bathroom as the tornado hit. They laid flat in the tub, and the home was ripped away around them. The sizable frame house was shredded away until only a tattered bathroom was left. There a more images I can't share, but multiple homes in this area were flattened entirely other than just a few small interior rooms.
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Patty and Marty Gunter experienced the tornado in their home. They ran downstairs, but couldn't make it to their safe place in time. They were in the kitchen and Pattie recalls the pressure being so strong it felt like her feet were nailed to the floor. Patti crouched down on the floor covering her head and the next thing she remembers is sitting on the ground in the foundation of the house. "There was no floor. Just dirt." Marty had a similar experience . In the blink of an eye the couple's home was ripped out from under them and they both survived, standing on bare dirt where the house had been. The only thing remaining was a few foundation blocks. One of their cars was found upside down 50 feet away, and the other was upside down in the woods 100 feet away.
Here's their house:
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The home had a CMU foundation with grout and rebar. The house was secured to the foundation with "big bolts and washers every so often", which Tornado Talk has confirmed with photographic evidence. No substantial remains were deposited anywhere, only small pieces scattered in the forest hundreds of yards away. Damage patterns indicated a suction vortex completed a trochoidal loop over this spot. A stone tree ring planter filled with mulch and a medium sized tree inside took a direct hit, and disappeared with only some disturbed dirt and a few splinters left.
About 110 yards SE the most impressive structural damage occurred (pictured below). The house was less than two years old, and it was built to hurricane specifications. The foundation was built of firmly reinforced and fully filled/sealed concrete masonry, encased on the outside by brick veneer. It rose a little less than a foot above the ground. Some additional reinforced masonry columns were located in the open space inside the foundation. The house disappeared, with only a few remaining pieces of plumbing and brick inside the foundation. The rest of the house was granulated with tiny fragments scattered into the forest.
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Before and After imagery of the area from Google maps
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Another home further in the path was completely swept clean aside from a small corner of the house
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There are many many more images in the article that I can't share and they're all mind-blowing. Including a screwdriver, old photo, and paper stuck into fully debarked trees.
www.tornadotalk.com
New rating: (E)F5
Reasons: Strong framed homes swept clean, trees completely debarked, incredible phenomena.
