Forum Member's Town Suffers Tornado Wind and rain damage is extensive.

[Mich 0]

Just got back on line. Things have been quite a mess here for the last few days. On Thursday night June 12th we had a tornado and 80+ mile-an-hour winds in my town. The tornado evidently didn't touch all the way down to ground level as only very old, tall trees were toppled or uprooted. Falling trees caused much damage to houses, cars, power lines and telephone lines. Lost electric power for over 20 hours at my house and others still don't have power. Thank heaven NObody was reported injured.

 

The torrents of rain that accompanied this storm pounded down 11 inches. It came in waves that were so heavy you couldn't see across the street. The lightning was horrendous. It went on all night. The rain washed out roads, bridge footings, railroad tracks, and generally flooded the area. US-31 south out of our town is closed and the village my daughter lives in is vurtually isolated. Freight trains cannot get through her village because the tracks washed out.

 

One road that dead-ends at Lake Michigan some 100 or more feet above the lake, was washed 50 feet back into the road and cross-road taking out drain system, black top and all. Looking over the edge it looks like a bad version of the Grand Canyon. One house that used to be Lake View is now Beach Front property. Another has had the road to their house half washed away and neither can drive cars to their homes for fear of further collapse into the lake. On another cul-d-sac, homeowners awoke to a sink hole that took out the street, their driveways and one of their cars. It is about 15 feet deep. The only thing left standing was the main sewer man-hole. It certainly looks silly sitting there in the middle like a lighthouse.

 

My ISP is working from a backup. I haven't been able to get on line since all this happened. Today we discovered that the backup was not current and my account isn't included in the backup. Soooo, they had to create a temporary account for me through another server so I can get on line until they get things straightened out. Then when I did finally get on line, my site was down. Couldn't access my cPanel or use my ftp. I had to contact Xisto live support and they got things back on line for me. This, folks, has been a week to remember.

 

You can view a video here

http://www.9and10news.com/category/story/?id=136639

[jlhaslip 4]

Glad that all the residents (especially you and yours) are all safe.The fury of a Tornado can not be denied as an extremely powerful event. I witnessed one of immense proportions up close and personal about 21 years ago and will never forget that day. Or the week or the next six months as familiar settings were rebuilt. My house included.Amen that you are all well. Roads can replaced. Not so with people.

[truefusion 3]

Crazy. Thank God no one was reported injured.Where i live at we are proned to hurricanes. So far i haven't been on the side of the storm that carried tornadoes with it, but the possibility is still there. For, i think, the last two years we haven't had any hurricanes stop by, but it feels like this year might be different.

[Saint_Michael 3]

GASP!! , Glad that your doing well and that your safe Mich, and we been getting the aftermath of the storms from the mid west here as well, and I have to admit I haven't seen weather like this in years. It besgs the question who pissed off mother nature for her to act like this. Of course, it sucks to be in Iowa though, man they gotten the worse of all this weather, going to takes days for all that water to go down, but it is funny though, the goverment was sure to qucik to act on this one.

[sheepdog 10]

I am glad to hear you are ok at any rate! This has been one terrible year for tornados and heavy rains. We had our first tornado here in January of all things! Very unusual for that time of year! We lost our big highway sign, and the neighbor across the road had big cedar trees snapped off 6-8 feet up the trunks like they were just twigs. But the last tornado from a couple weeks ago really tore up the town. Many building suffered major damage. The town was really a mess. But amazingly enough no one was injured. It hit early in the morning, just before daylight. We sat and watched out our front window and could see explosions around town, bright flashes of blue and green and red lights would just explode on the horizon. It was almost like watching a fireworks display. I think it was the electric transformers as the power lines were snapped and poles came down.

[krazygoddess 0]

Wow sure glad you are all ok, This has been a horrible year so far I find myself watcing the weather channel alot lately. WEhave had over the amount of tornados that we usually have all year so far already this year, and all the flooding going on its crazy. Someplaces in the west are stil extrmely cold which is unusual for this time of year and here in the east we have been very very hot we had a week of high 90's and low 100's here in pa which was not normal yet it was to early. This has been a very unusual year so far.

[litchy 0]

Geez! I'm so lucky to be living in Australia, we don't have Tornadoes, Cyclones and we haven't had a major earthquake for quite a few years. You had a few things happening; Heavy rain and a Tornado, not really a good combo.Anyway Hope all is well, property intact, ISP Fixed up and the rest of your town rebuilds

[Mich 0]

Thanks for all the kind words of support everybody.

 

Further information on the storm of a more personal concern. My close friend's family had a lot of damage done to their homes. One of her grandsons had been replacing part of his roof during earlier hours of June 12th and had only tarpaper on it. The rains were so furious that the roof leaked, all his ceilings fell into the house in this area. Insulation and water destroyed the interior. They are living with his mother until things get redone. Their kitchen and bathroom were destroyed. The other grandson and his family sought refuge in their basement. When they finally came up they found that the French doors had blown open and there was 3 inches of water on their hardwood floor. My friend, herself, was one of the people that lost power for 3 days. I couldn't contact her, so I drove out to see if she was ok, and found her at her daughters house. She was find, just didn't have power. Her phone was out and she doesn't have a cell.

 

After listening to all this, I feel blessed. We only had a limb down in the backyard. Since we live so close to Lake Michigan, we are down low. Most of the town as you go eastward is uphill (sand dunes) so consequently is higher and that is where the most damage was done. The worst of the winds hit the higher elevation. I guess we were sheltered from the storm down here at beach level. Thank heaven our roof stood up to the heavy rains and no doors blew open. Amen.

[Saint_Michael 3]

Its amazing when mother nature brings her wrath down she likes to skip houses or make your house the only damage one while everyone else is safe. Of course Helping those out who were not fortune enough should be on the list of things to do in order for them to get back on their feet. I hope you are Mich .

[adriantc 0]

WOW!?! That's unfortunate... 20 hours without power - only that would be enough to kill me... ;) no computer, no TV. And you seem to be the fortunate one, compared to your friends and family.Even with all our technology we are powerless against the awesome forces of nature... We can predict, but we can't control. I guess we all have to get used with extremes like this since with global warming things like this will hit more and more frequently. So where did you spend the time it took for the tornado to pass? Where you like in the basement or you went out of harms way?

Edited July 3, 2008 by adriantc (see edit history)

[Mich 0]

So where did you spend the time it took for the tornado to pass? Where you like in the basement or you went out of harms way?

Believe it or not, we didn't hear the tornado warnings and it passed by us, thank heaven. We were one of the few that remained upstairs and watched things out our windows. Since we were forced to use our imaginations in our childhoods, we were able to occupy ourselves with other things, like reading and doing puzzles by candlelight. Yeh, when modern conveniences are cut off, things seem to be rough. Especially for those who grew up depending on them. Oh, we did have a battery operated radio.