So you work on base? Or just in the Andover/Wichita area? My dad's an Air Force veteran and he was stationed at McConnell around the time of the tornado, although I'm not sure if he was still on base on April 26, 1991.
I work at Papa John's as a delivery driver on Andover Rd. I am just in walking distance where the large church and trailer park was swept away by the Andover tornado.
I know 18 F4's and not one of them an F5. At least at minimum 2 or 3 should have been rated F5..
Certainly compared to some of the "F5s" from the 70s and 80s.
IIRC, there was one tornado that struck Louisiana in the early 1970s that was rated F5 because it had stripped a fairly large building off its basement walls; indeed, for a time an aerial image of the damage was used as an illustration of F5-level damage in official documentation. However, a closer inspection of the image shows that the basement walls were constructed of cinder block without much (if any) reinforcements visible; if that was seen today it would get at most an (E)F2 rating. However, this is just a recollection; I could have some of the details wrong, but hopefully the general gist is still accurate.
This tornado really reminds me of Coleridge NE tornado in 2014. I believe both of them may have F/EF5 potential if they hit a town at its peak.
The ground scouring there is almost Jarrell-like in places. Can't believe this wasn't given an EF5 rating. So many EF4s that should have given an EF5 rating in the past decade, amazing really.
That one was actually rated high-end EF3 due to the fact that it was slow-moving and only hit unanchored homes. It was clearly much stronger than that though.
Interesting, so one of the reasons this was rated EF3 WAS for slow movement? Interesting, considering Jarrell wasn't. I know there was a paper that said the majority of Jarrell's COULD have been done by F3 winds if the storm was moving that slow.
Could the fact that it was moving southeast had something to do with the extremity?
What's interesting is there's a site (original link went down but I could dig for it through the Internet Archives) were at least 2 (possibly 3) of those tornadoes were explicitly mentioned as having caused F5 damage. The site may have been quoting from some of Fujita's original papers on the event, I'd have to dig for it but could probably find it eventually.
Smithville, MS EF5 damage. Note the Philadelphia-like scouring that occurred outside of down. Very deep trench digging occurred. Also note the scouring of lawn grass in the yards of several homes in town. The first and last pics are of the same house, which sustained the worst damage to a concrete slab foundation I've ever seen as a result of any tornado. Smithville was in my opinion, the most impressive of the 4/27 tornadoes in terms of damage.
Also , I have damage photo collections of every official EF5 since the implementation of the EF scale. Will slowly post them on this thread.
I have a huge collection of all the most impressive Hackleburg/Phil Campbell pics. Will upload them tonight.
