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Severe Weather Threat 4/25-4/26, 2024 - (Thursday, Friday)

  • Thread starter Thread starter Former Member 1430
  • Start date Start date
Equus said:
Definitely looks the part, would not be shocked to see that become an official bump from 165 to 170 on Storm Data
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I am honestly a bit surprised that THIS house is one that's being used as basis for a likely upgrade because of three reasons: the first one being that the subfloor stayed attached to the foundation, the second being that the DAT says nails were the main connection between the walls and foundation, and the third being the fact that another home in a more rural area closer to Bennington DID have its subfloor torn completely off. The difference is that the cars at the house near Bennington weren't thrown, and the cars at the EF4-rated home shown above WERE thrown. Is context the discerning factor here?
 
This is the one I was talking about. There are bolts, however after looking at this again months later, I see a total lack of any nails connecting the sill plates to the walls here. Not even a few bare-minimum straight nails. I'd say that plays in the role in the EF3 rating there.
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buckeye05 said:
This is the one I was talking about. There are bolts, however after looking at this again months later, I see a total lack of any nails connecting the sill plates to the walls here. Not even a few bare-minimum straight nails. I'd say that plays in the role in the EF3 rating there.


The studs wouldn't attach here. This would have had a floor system sitting on it with joists, rim bands,and plywood on top. The wall plates would have sat on top of that, and the floor system would have probably been toe-nailed to these plates you see here. That is not a strong connection but is typical "drop sill" construction in most places. Often those toe-nails would have split out of the rim and floor joists and been left in this plate, which I'm seeing none of here so essentially mostly or only gravity was holding this floor system down. Very poor construction in this regard.
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buckeye05 said:
This is the one I was talking about. There are bolts, however after looking at this again months later, I see a total lack of any nails connecting the sill plates to the walls here. Not even a few bare-minimum straight nails. I'd say that plays in the role in the EF3 rating there.
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Poor construction aside, it appears that part of the poured concrete foundation failed which is rather impressive. Definitely nowhere near EF5 level winds here (the heap of intact walls and other large chunks of debris left nearby says a lot) but wouldn't be surprised if this home was indeed impacted by lower-end violent winds. Don't know if the foundation was properly reinforced, and I'm sure the fact that it was a walk-out basement wall likely played a part in its destruction.
 
To illustrate my point better, here's a home from the 2002 La Plata tornado that failed in a very similar fashion to the Elkhorn home. Poured concrete basement wall blown down, debris left in a pile nearby. Do think the La Plata example is a bit more impressive though, since the basement wall was actually flipped and blown inward and the debris pile seems to lack any intact walls. Again, don't consider this F5 damage, but definitely a solid candidate for at least low-end F4.
laplata1-jpg.21741


Another angle of the Elkhorn home:
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TH2002 said:
Don't know if the foundation was properly reinforced, and I'm sure the fact that it was a walk-out basement wall likely played a part in its destruction.
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I can't see any reinforcing. That's rather common in residential wall and stem wall construction. With wind pressure, even a moderate impact could crack off a piece of unreinforced concrete like snapping a hard cookie in two. Reinforcing prevents such breakage and reduces the chances of cracking.
 
TH2002 said:
Good call by NWS Omaha, and goes to show how thorough they were. Upgrade took a little over three months, but better late than never I suppose.
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I always felt the initial rating was questionable, considering the sheer number of homes completely leveled or swept clean. Glad to see them going back and reviewing the damage more thoroughly and making the right call in this case.
 
Oh wow, I guess I completely missed the boat on which tornado from this outbreak was actually being considered for an EF4 upgrade. I was sure if any it would be Minden-Harlan. I realize visual appearance is not a determining factor in tornado ratings, but that thing was absolutely monstrous; at times resembling Rochelle and/or Keota.

Still, it seemed like a glaring error of omission that this outbreak did not, officially, contain a violent tornado. At least that has been rectified.
 
Western_KS_Wx said:
I always felt the initial rating was questionable, considering the sheer number of homes completely leveled or swept clean. Glad to see them going back and reviewing the damage more thoroughly and making the right call in this case.
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One of the homes rated EF4 now was…originally rated mid range EF2…

NWS Louisville Kentucky take notes.
 
TH2002 said:
To illustrate my point better, here's a home from the 2002 La Plata tornado that failed in a very similar fashion to the Elkhorn home. Poured concrete basement wall blown down, debris left in a pile nearby. Do think the La Plata example is a bit more impressive though, since the basement wall was actually flipped and blown inward and the debris pile seems to lack any intact walls. Again, don't consider this F5 damage, but definitely a solid candidate for at least low-end F4.
laplata1-jpg.21741


Another angle of the Elkhorn home:
2394095
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Though there is a lack of contextual that home damage looks pretty impressive.
 
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