Shakespeare2016
Member
I might buy that reasoning if the ratings were tied to empirically-confirmed wind speeds rather than estimates, since you could actually come to more concrete (no pun intended) conclusions about how much time a tornado would have to remain over an area to cause a certain category of damage. But when it's all estimated anyway, that seems arbitrary to me.
Though there was very little to no EF5 structural damage with the Rainsville tornado, I remember reading the survey and the contextual evidence blew my mind.Rainsville was extremely violent in its own right, but gets overshadowed by Philadelphia, Hackleburg, and especially Smithville. The thing about Rainsville is that it was rated EF5 mainly based on contextual damage. Surveyors were understandably very hesitant about upgrading based on this, so it wasn’t upgraded from EF4 to EF5 until June. The homes it swept away, while anchor-bolted, had cinder block foundations rather than poured concrete or slabs, so the structural damage it produced wasn’t quite as impressive as Smithville or Hackleburg. However it did manage to:
-Obliterate a stone house, ripping a pillar and a large concrete anchor out of the ground.
-Rip concrete porches out of the ground, shattering them and scattering concrete fragments for over 100 yards.
-Scour grass and pavement, and pull sidewalk out of the ground.
-Scour earth from over top of an underground storm shelter, heaving up upward out of the ground slightly.
-Rip an 800 lb engineered “EF5 proof” Liberty Safe from its bolts, throwing it 600 feet and ripping the steel door from its hinges.
All of this clearly points to EF5 winds, though the actual structural damage wasn’t quite as impressive. For this reason, Rainsville’s EF5 rating is well-deserved, though a bit liberal considering how the EF5 scale is typically used.