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Significant Tornado Events

Lake Martin EF4 said:
Y'know, I haven't seen much descriptions of what happened to the New Richmond victims besides that some of them were "burnt" because of the fires + a few of them got ripped to shreds. I feel like that isn't nearly the worst of it.
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Yeah, it's very much not. One of the reasons there were so many conflicting death toll numbers early on is because they kept finding, let's say.. multiple fractions of people who ended up being the same person. Southwest of town, a man was caught out in a pasture with his cows and killed, but apparently no one noticed his body among the cows initially because they all got Jarrell'd. There's also an account of a nurse who pulled a girl from the rubble and worked on her for some time without ever realizing the girl was her own daughter - she wasn't even recognizable.

There's probably no way to verify it at this point, but several sources at the time also told a story of a man who was killed in the northeast part of New Richmond and wasn't identified for a few days.. until his head was found in a field way on the other side of the mill pond. Which is pretty close to a mile away.

Edit: Just saw your last post. And yeah, that's basically what I mean by Jarrell'd.
 
Lake Martin EF4 said:
Reminds me of how Phil Campbell's 230+ death toll turned into 72. Why? Because they overcounted the body parts.
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Yeah, I honestly have no idea how first responders and search & rescue crews and whatnot deal with that sort of thing. I was the first person on the scene once in a car accident where a friend of mine was killed, which was horrible enough, but a major tornado is like a freakin' jet crash or something.
 
locomusic01 said:
Yeah, I honestly have no idea how first responders and search & rescue crews and whatnot deal with that sort of thing. I was the first person on the scene once in a car accident where a friend of mine was killed, which was horrible enough, but a major tornado is like a freakin' jet crash or something.
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I think with Tupelo 1936 they had to use mass graves for a ton of people, especially the entire families that were killed as the bodies couldn't be identified.
One of the other tornadoes that was part of the outbreak that spawned Tri-State had something similar happen, I believe.
 
Juliett Bravo Kilo said:
I think with Tupelo 1936 they had to use mass graves for a ton of people, especially the entire families that were killed as the bodies couldn't be identified.
One of the other tornadoes that was part of the outbreak that spawned Tri-State had something similar happen, I believe.
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Lake Martin EF4 said:
That'd probably be the Gallatin area tornado that very likely reached F5 intensity.
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Yup, multiple entire families were killed in Sumner County, TN; many of them in pretty terrible ways.

sumner-co-tn-alison-home.jpg


sumner-co-tn-durham-home.jpg


sumner-co-tn-brown-home.jpg


Lake Martin EF4 said:
Oh. Oh god. I'm so sorry for your loss.
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Thanks, I appreciate it.
 
Several first responders have told me that you get past such things, but you never get over it- you only learn how to control it for now so you can do your job, then you deal with it later in your own way.
 
locomusic01 said:
No (or at least not that I'm aware of); his granddaughter reached out to me and put me in contact. Here's a clipping of a very similar story from another man:

JopTjG6.jpg


I believe he passed away quite a while ago so I couldn't find out precisely where he was, but it sounds like he must have watched from basically the same location. Only major difference is that he says he saw the doors of a car fly open, but I think he must have seen it wrong unless he's talking about people who miraculously survived. The car in which two women were killed was essentially torn in half, and the other vehicle with a fatality is the one in which the wife was sucked out and the husband was trapped by the steering wheel.

I was gonna add a warning about not reading the final paragraph if you're squeamish, but I figure anyone who's stuck around this far into the conversation is probably already past that lol
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The bit about the vehicles spinning like helicopters; never heard that before. With the footage of Pampa you simply sees the cars ascending and being ejected from the funnel, not them spinning like that. This guy must have been REAL close or the tornado really was that violent. I imagine that violent centrifugal motion on vehicles would more or less disintegrate them, perhaps that's why there isn't a lot of vehicle damage photographed because there wasn't much left.
The more I read your article on 1985 (haven't gotten through the whole thing yet) the more in awe I am of Niles-Wheatland and how insanely violent it was. Its violence is all the more remarkable considering how far east it occurred.
 
I still am astonished how truly violent the 2011 El Reno-Piedmont tornado was, and how little recognition it received.
This is quite literally the most extreme contextual damage you’re going to see from a tornado, and is easily on par with Bridge Creek and Jarrell:
B1C9A034-35C7-4291-84D1-C2E0344B29E1.jpeg
7B056991-BA8B-4548-9C0D-0FC4DBF80256.png
48551DC8-0E4D-4F55-BA77-97599BB4E2CD.jpeg
B8F69137-2C65-4EBA-8411-58592EE15B49.jpeg
This is damage near the Calumet area where the first initial ‘peak’ occurred and also where RAXPOL mobile radar recorded wind speeds of >280mph. Vegetation damage here was among the most extreme ever photographed and an oil Derrick weighing 1.9 million pounds was lifted and blown over 3 times.
AEB4A32F-0107-41BF-A46B-BB3AECB68CEA.jpeg
41FA65E7-29A6-47B6-9D3E-93888D8D3579.jpeg
B6D6D96D-27C6-4B01-AA04-79E96215811D.jpeg
D474310D-7C70-4231-955A-4D8A20A4A062.jpeg
FC5D174C-E893-4897-8811-D1C1C254152D.jpeg
89E09712-12E5-4E7F-BDDC-455DD6D20ECD.jpeg
Damage in and around Piedmont where similar extreme instances of damage were evident. Multiple vehicles were thrown hundreds of yards through the air, several of which 1/2 mile or more and completely mangled beyond recognition. Trees and shrubs of all shapes and sizes were utterly pulverized and debarked entirely along with several inches of topsoil being scoured away. Several large brick homes were flattened or swept cleanly away in this area as well.

Interestingly enough, despite all of this ridiculously extreme damage that screams nothing but EF5 intensity, the main basis for the EF5 rating was actually the mobile radar data and had it not been for the RAXPOL findings this tornado may have very well been rated EF4. Damage in Piedmont and elsewhere along the track except for a small streak around I-40 and near the Cactus 117 site (which is not a DI btw) was rated EF4, further showing the flaws of the EF-scale. Nonetheless this tornado was likely just as violent if not perhaps more so than Bridge Creek-Moore in 1999 and is among the most violent of all time.
 
Western_KS_Wx said:
I still am astonished how truly violent the 2011 El Reno-Piedmont tornado was, and how little recognition it received.
This is quite literally the most extreme contextual damage you’re going to see from a tornado, and is easily on par with Bridge Creek and Jarrell:
View attachment 15846
View attachment 15847
View attachment 15851
View attachment 15852
This is damage near the Calumet area where the first initial ‘peak’ occurred and also where RAXPOL mobile radar recorded wind speeds of >280mph. Vegetation damage here was among the most extreme ever photographed and an oil Derrick weighing 1.9 million pounds was lifted and blown over 3 times.
View attachment 15857
View attachment 15860
View attachment 15859
View attachment 15858
View attachment 15862
View attachment 15863
Damage in and around Piedmont where similar extreme instances of damage were evident. Multiple vehicles were thrown hundreds of yards through the air, several of which 1/2 mile or more and completely mangled beyond recognition. Trees and shrubs of all shapes and sizes were utterly pulverized and debarked entirely along with several inches of topsoil being scoured away. Several large brick homes were flattened or swept cleanly away in this area as well.

Interestingly enough, despite all of this ridiculously extreme damage that screams nothing but EF5 intensity, the main basis for the EF5 rating was actually the mobile radar data and had it not been for the RAXPOL findings this tornado may have very well been rated EF4. Damage in Piedmont and elsewhere along the track except for a small streak around I-40 and near the Cactus 117 site (which is not a DI btw) was rated EF4, further showing the flaws of the EF-scale. Nonetheless this tornado was likely just as violent if not perhaps more so than Bridge Creek-Moore in 1999 and is among the most violent of all time.
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Two more of extreme vegetation debarking:

cactus.jpg


QQ20200119210104.jpg


This thing also did this:


car_tree.jpg


el_reno_tree.jpg


Still can't wrap my head around that:
 
Western_KS_Wx said:
I still am astonished how truly violent the 2011 El Reno-Piedmont tornado was, and how little recognition it received.
This is quite literally the most extreme contextual damage you’re going to see from a tornado, and is easily on par with Bridge Creek and Jarrell:
View attachment 15846
View attachment 15847
View attachment 15851
View attachment 15852
This is damage near the Calumet area where the first initial ‘peak’ occurred and also where RAXPOL mobile radar recorded wind speeds of >280mph. Vegetation damage here was among the most extreme ever photographed and an oil Derrick weighing 1.9 million pounds was lifted and blown over 3 times.
View attachment 15857
View attachment 15860
View attachment 15859
View attachment 15858
View attachment 15862
View attachment 15863
Damage in and around Piedmont where similar extreme instances of damage were evident. Multiple vehicles were thrown hundreds of yards through the air, several of which 1/2 mile or more and completely mangled beyond recognition. Trees and shrubs of all shapes and sizes were utterly pulverized and debarked entirely along with several inches of topsoil being scoured away. Several large brick homes were flattened or swept cleanly away in this area as well.

Interestingly enough, despite all of this ridiculously extreme damage that screams nothing but EF5 intensity, the main basis for the EF5 rating was actually the mobile radar data and had it not been for the RAXPOL findings this tornado may have very well been rated EF4. Damage in Piedmont and elsewhere along the track except for a small streak around I-40 and near the Cactus 117 site (which is not a DI btw) was rated EF4, further showing the flaws of the EF-scale. Nonetheless this tornado was likely just as violent if not perhaps more so than Bridge Creek-Moore in 1999 and is among the most violent of all time.
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One interesting photo along Us66 near Calumet. I not so sure what happened here but it seems to me that part of foundation of the house was gone? Also this was the place where underground shelter was cracked.
FPNTSHDXIAYfE3_.jpeg
 
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Western_KS_Wx said:
Interestingly enough, despite all of this ridiculously extreme damage that screams nothing but EF5 intensity, the main basis for the EF5 rating was actually the mobile radar data and had it not been for the RAXPOL findings this tornado may have very well been rated EF4.
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That right there is why it wouldn't be EF5 today. Remember Bennington? Remember the other El Reno?
 
Lake Martin EF4 said:
That right there is why it wouldn't be EF5 today. Remember Bennington? Remember the other El Reno?
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Based on the tornadotalk's article and my discussion with nelson who communicated with surveyors like Rick Smith, I think survey team seems to reach to consensus that this tornado attain EF5 intensity both near Calumet and Piedmont damage wise. But for rating staff, I'm not sure.
 
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