Significant Tornado Events

[pohnpei]

Things which can't be proven are not necessarily disproven by that. I can see the possibility of wellpipe being pulled out of the ground. Shallow wells common in areas like Smithville often have the pump on top and lightweight PVC piping dropped into the hole. The pump is fairly heavy but not at the level of a car engine, an object known to have been lofted and thrown in many proven cases. Moreso they sit on a raised concrete skirting around the hole which adds a lot of area for winds to affect once dislodgement begins. Shallow well 'jet pumps' with the pump at the bottom are also sometimes piped with PVC. That would be harder to draw up from the ground, but not if the skirting came loose and pulled the pipe with it. Deep wells and some shallow ones (especially older ones) use 1 1/4" steel pipe. Add the jet pump at the bottom and even with the skirting dislodged I'd be gobsmacked to discover that heavy mass had been pulled up as surely a pipe joint would have broken first. I'd sure love to know all those details here.

I may have the wrong tornado but I recall seeing a pic where a concrete drain culvert pipe such as are found under driveways and roads had been thrown and was misidentified as a "concrete sewer pipe" in the caption which are always much deeper. The "Details Devil" strikes again. And again there are several proven instances where water pipe was pulled from the ground and even up through concrete slabs, so I find that too as being quite possible, especially in the south where a pipe just one foot underground will never freeze and there's plenty of them installed that shallow. In a slab if the pipe is foam-insulated there's really not much holding it, and it's not a stretch to see it pulling loose with a wall with only a few inches of concrete slab around it.

We should be suspicious of every claim; even good pictures can be misleading based on shot angle, field of depth, lighting etc. Confirmation bias is strongest with pictures too. AZ healthy suspicion of everything helps ensure clarity and makes it easier to sort through the possibilities with less chance for erroneous results. Eyewitness reports by reasonable people should be given the benefit of doubt toward their being more true than false, especially if other indications point toward that possibility. But what we must never do is pull the "pics or it didn't happen" BS as things do happen whether it gets pictures or not. If a supposed 'fact' seems questionable then report it as such, explaining why you hesitate to believe it, then leave it for posterity to decide. The proof you lacked may turn up later.

I fully respect these opinions! With these information you posted, it did seem that the culvert being ripped out was likely but the key problem here was what's exact winds it needs to do such damage. I think we probably have no idea on that. Also we don't really know what's the lowest possible and more typical winds to crack concrete foundation or scour asphalt. Certainly tornados can do very bizarre damage but how much value do these damage indicators matter in intensity estimatation is at least arguable. At least they are more varied in different situation compared to normal damage indicators. Like we can't say Moore tornado didn't dislodge or broken any concrete foundation so it's weaker than these tornados did these types of damage or Smithville didn't scoured asphalt of any road in town so it's weaker than those tornados that scoured asphalts. If I had to assume, I would argue asphalt can sometimes be scoured just unde EF3 level winds but sometimes can't be scoured even under 300mph winds. Same with concrete foundation or other bizarre damage features.

But stil I can understand to what extent we can fully buy in these more obscure or bizarre damage descriptions can vary people to people.

 

[Sawmaster]

I argue against use of contextual damage because it's so variable. If you can assign it accurate numbers then do so and use it, but then it's not contextual but a DI instead. I could also argue about toe-nailed studs, as the angle and height these are driven at vary and that can play a large part of how well they attach to the plates, not to mention that a hand-driven 16d CC sinker framing nail has a lot more holding power than it's supposed equivalent in a machine-driven nail which is shorter and smaller in diameter. Recent discussions here on pavement scouring show how variable it really is.

I think the best answer is to stop being persnickety on exact details and apply common sense, but then it too is variable and undefinable so that won't work either. Or maybe we could adopt the TORRO scale adding half-points in between and leave everyone confused on exactly how strong each rating level really is- I wonder if jolly old England has divisiveness and discussion on those ratings there? LOL!

 

[locomusic01]

The situation reminds me of Joplin: the tornado touched down 2 hours after high school graduation and hundreds of out-of-towners had left for the day. I do know that quite a bit of the fatalities with Joplin were visitors who didn't know the area that well. The problem with counting fatalities back then is that people who succumbed to their injuries later weren't always followed up on. It wouldn't surprise me if this thing killed ~150 or so people, but no way to know for sure.

That's usually true, but tbh the press actually did a pretty good job w/New Richmond. Most of the seriously injured were sent to hospitals in the Twin Cities, so the papers there ran regular updates for a few weeks. Well, at least for the victims within New Richmond itself. There are up to six possible deaths around Boardman and four others scattered around the Deer Park/Clear Lake/Arland area where there were a bunch of conflicting reports early on and then not much follow-up. I tried searching through all the local cemeteries and death records and whatnot but still haven't been able to confirm which of them actually died.

Arland is especially interesting and I'm hoping I can find more info on it. It was a tiny little village (actually even "village" is probably being generous) but it was apparently so thoroughly obliterated that it was hard to tell where it had even been. This would've been the 4th tornado in the family; I've confirmed two fatalities early in the path but there may've been anywhere from one to three others.

 

[Tomcats Forever!]

Wire mesh isn't always necessary with a house slab and many are poured without that. If there's a good "toe down" at the perimeter which has rebar properly placed and the soil has been properly tested or prepared, there's little chance of structural cracking due to a lack of wire mesh. Also there's a trend toward use of 'fiber reinforced concrete' which offers similar properties as mesh in the concrete itself. In fact, it is said that it can actually out-perform wire mesh but I'm old-fashioned and am not personally so sure about that.

The most common house slab failures are due to improper soil support; pouring too wet, curing too fast, inadequate thickness, and improper rebar use and/or placement. Residential builders tend to know nearly nothing about concrete but folks with industrial concrete experience like me see how shoddy the work really is almost universal

I know we're getting slightly off topic, but how common is it that the pour will be how it looked in Bremen- where the concrete actually ends up more or less floated on top of the mesh (mix too dry?), which is all my untrained eye can figure out happened.

Mesh and gravel were still where the slab should have been, perfectly aligned, looking like they were ready for another pour.

 

[Sawmaster]

Mesh is usualy lifted into the pour with hooks or by hand when poured. I've never seen it left below but it could happen. For compressive top loads (in otheer words slabs) it's set about 1/4 to 1/3 of the thickness from the bottom.

 

[TH2002]

I fully respect these opinions! With these information you posted, it did seem that the culvert being ripped out was likely but the key problem here was what's exact winds it needs to do such damage. I think we probably have no idea on that. Also we don't really know what's the lowest possible and more typical winds to crack concrete foundation or scour asphalt. Certainly tornados can do very bizarre damage but how much value do these damage indicators matter in intensity estimatation is at least arguable. At least they are more varied in different situation compared to normal damage indicators. Like we can't say Moore tornado didn't dislodge or broken any concrete foundation so it's weaker than these tornados did these types of damage or Smithville didn't scoured asphalt of any road in town so it's weaker than those tornados that scoured asphalts. If I had to assume, I would argue asphalt can sometimes be scoured just unde EF3 level winds but sometimes can't be scoured even under 300mph winds. Same with concrete foundation or other bizarre damage features.

But stil I can understand to what extent we can fully buy in these more obscure or bizarre damage descriptions can vary people to people.

Regarding asphalt scouring, there's no doubt it tends to be correlated with higher end tornadoes although events like Americus have demonstrated that a less than violent tornado can do it; Smithville scoured tar-and-chip pavement although I've heard that type of pavement (and I'd imagine any that is improperly poured/heavily worn) would be more susceptible to scouring.

One type of damage that people always seem to be impressed by is the bending and/or snapping of anchor bolts at destroyed residences. While I can't imagine a good quality, properly installed anchor bolt bending or snapping in a less than violent tornado, Pembroke and Arabi (and I'm sure other examples too) have shown that an EF5 is not required to do so. In cases of the bolts actually snapping I have to wonder if the failure point was the bolt itself stemming from quality control issues in the factories that make them, rather than impressive wind speeds attributable to the tornado; and in Arabi's case the bolts were likely not properly installed to begin with (note where the metal 'sill plating' was peeled back after the bolts were torn out):

By contrast Smithville was much more impressive in this regard, with the torn-out anchor bolts leaving much larger holes along the perimeter of the foundation:


Anyhow, here's the metal waste pipe that was actually ripped out of the ground in Smithville; the second photo is the other pipe that was dug up post tornado, and NOT the same spot:

And yeah, while I'm not sure what kind of winds it would take to do this, since it's extremely rare to see stuff like this happen I'd imagine it takes an incredible amount of force. The only comparable example I can think of off the top of my head is Pomeroy 1893.

 

[Casuarina Head]

Well EF5 tornadoes like Smithville and Hackleburg can rip away the masonry so violently that chunks of the foundation get taken with it (also happened with Chapman, come to think of it) but that's not the same thing as "dislodging" a foundation, like a certain poster seems to think.

I must clarify my stance on Smithville. Maybe the foundation itself wasn’t dislodged, but a large portion of the slab was clearly uplifted:

^ Prior to Smithville a number of people seemed to believe that this kind of damage wasn’t physically possible.

 

[locomusic01]

I must clarify my stance on Smithville. Maybe the foundation itself wasn’t dislodged, but a large portion of the slab was clearly uplifted:

^ Prior to Smithville a number of people seemed to believe that this kind of damage wasn’t physically possible.

Am I just seeing it wrong? Because that looks like the subfloor to me, although the photos aren't super clear.

 

[atrainguy]

Random question, but what did the New Richmond tornado look like? Was it a wedge? Sounds like it was fairly wide, but I remember it being said somewhere the condensation funnels don't always represent the true width of the tornado.

 

[pohnpei]

Am I just seeing it wrong? Because that looks like the subfloor to me, although the photos aren't super clear.

Clear ground level photos of this particular house
Looks to that the foundation was a mix of concrete and wood subfloor and concrete portion was ok but wood subfloor was damaged to me.


vehicle nearby

To me, what more notable was those extreme level shurbbery damages which is a much more reliable damage indicator than foundation damage in violent tornados.

 

[locomusic01]

Random question, but what did the New Richmond tornado look like? Was it a wedge? Sounds like it was fairly wide, but I remember it being said somewhere the condensation funnels don't always represent the true width of the tornado.

It changed quite a lot throughout its path. A couple hundred people saw it moving up Lake St. Croix as a bright, slender tube, at which point it was ~150-200 yards wide. It sounds like it was more of a ragged multivortex tornado as it passed SE of Hudson and E of North Wisconsin Junction, where it cycled and lifted briefly.

When it touched down again, it probably began as something between a cone and a stovepipe, but based on descriptions + damage points I suspect it may have had a failed occlusion NE of Burkhardt. After the occlusion failed, it grew very quickly and ultimately maxed out at somewhere between three-quarters and one mile. Not a lot of eyewitness accounts from this stage, but the few I've come across sound pretty similar to other classic old-timey wedges. I included one such description in my article:

Suddenly, a second powerful surge jolted the circulation back into place. In an instant, the sputtering updraft erupted and the tornado once again roared to life. The fulminating funnel expanded to a quarter-mile wide as it swept upstream along the river. “From this point on,” recalled Edward Hyde, a traveling man who’d witnessed the frightful transformation, “it seemed as if all the demons of hell were turned loose to do their worst.”

Hyde observed “a rolling, boiling mass of clouds, filled with constant lightning.”

It started shrinking again after that and ranged from half a mile to a quarter-mile as it tore through New Richmond. At that point most of the descriptions sound more like a cone tornado again.

 

[buckeye05]

Yeah the more I look at that one house foundation photo from Smithville, the more I question if we're actually seeing concrete pulled up. It's odd construction, but perhaps it's an addition to the house that was built on a different type of foundation that had a subfloor rather than a concrete slab? Then again, given what it did to that waste pipe, I wouldn't exactly put it past Smithville to have actually done that to a concrete foundation either...

 

[Casuarina Head]

Clear ground level photos of this particular house
Looks to that the foundation was a mix of concrete and wood subfloor and concrete portion was ok but wood subfloor was damaged to me.

vehicle nearby

To me, what more notable was those extreme level shurbbery damages which is a much more reliable damage indicator than foundation damage in violent tornados.

@pohnpei Actually, I think that we are looking at two different properties. In the second and third images the uplifted portion is facing outward, while in the fourth it is facing inward. Such features as the prominent stairwell, the positioning of vegetative objects, etc. are distinctly absent and/or different in the fourth image. Also, in both cases one can clearly see that the foundation itself appears to have been uplifted, along with any subfloor that may have existed and been attached. So it appears that Smithville did this kind of damage to multiple properties.

Yeah the more I look at that one house foundation photo from Smithville, the more I question if we're actually seeing concrete pulled up. It's odd construction, but perhaps it's an addition to the house that was built on a different type of foundation that had a subfloor rather than a concrete slab? Then again, given what it did to that waste pipe, I wouldn't exactly put it past Smithville to have actually done that to a concrete foundation either...

@buckeye05 @locomusic01 I think these close-ups are more than sufficient to illustrate that a concrete slab has indeed been pulled up.

 

[pohnpei]

@pohnpei Actually, I think that we are looking at two different properties. In the second and third images the uplifted portion is facing outward, while in the fourth it is facing inward. Such features as the prominent stairwell, the positioning of vegetative objects, etc. are distinctly absent and/or different in the fourth image. Also, in both cases one can clearly see that the foundation itself appears to have been uplifted, along with any subfloor that may have existed and been attached. So it appears that Smithville did this kind of damage to multiple properties.

@buckeye05 @locomusic01 I think these close-ups are more than sufficient to illustrate that a concrete slab has indeed been pulled up.

You can see from the right side of the second photo that it was the wood portion of the foundation got slightly uplifted.
The second pic you posted also faced wood portion of the foundation.

 

[Marshal79344]

Does anyone have high quality aerials of the Coldwater Road area after the 1953 Flint Tornado?

 

[atrainguy]

Does anyone have high quality aerials of the Coldwater Road area after the 1953 Flint Tornado?

Not sure if these count as "high quality", but FWIW here are a few I collected on my laptop. Maybe locomusic has some sharper images after researching his article awhile back.

 

[tornado examiner]

Some new smithville photos in here I see…I wonder if there are any more photos like those one…how do you guys find all of these??? I’ve never seen any of those apart from the aerial one.

 

[atrainguy]

I was messing around on Google Maps, looking at some retreats in northern Michigan, and stumbled on this tornado scar in the forest by Mio. Looking it up on Google, it looks to be from an EF2 in October 2007, part of a large outbreak spanning several states, with several EF3s occurring in Indiana and Kentucky.



By the corner of Town Line Rd and Cherry Creek Road apparently was where the 3 "destroyed" cabins were.

 

[atrainguy]

Looking at Google Earth, I noticed there is another still-visible path to the northeast of the other scar, this one from 1999. It went SE through Comins and apparently did heavy damage according this link, although it was "only" rated an F2. https://data.lansingstatejournal.com/tornado-archive/michigan/5700783/


Old imagery on Google Earth shows the Comins path as being particular evident as well, especially northwest of town, but for some reason I can't seem to attach that screenshot without an error sign. Anyways, not exactly historical or significant tornadoes, but I thought it was kinda neat accidentally finding the paths and thought I'd share.

 

[MNTornadoGuy]

Looking at Google Earth, I noticed there is another still-visible path to the northeast of the other scar, this one from 1999. It went SE through Comins and apparently did heavy damage according this link, although it was "only" rated an F2. https://data.lansingstatejournal.com/tornado-archive/michigan/5700783/
View attachment 17796

Old imagery on Google Earth shows the Comins path as being particular evident as well, especially northwest of town, but for some reason I can't seem to attach that screenshot without an error sign. Anyways, not exactly historical or significant tornadoes, but I thought it was kinda neat accidentally finding the paths and thought I'd share.

Here is what the scar looked like after the tornado occurred. It was probably stronger than F2.