[John Monnin]

I just missed the Northern Indiana tornados the other day. I drove by the damaged trailer park before any of the rescue squad made it there.

Driving home from work Wednesday I heard the Tornado warning in the country I live in but I live on the county line and the other county was not mentioned. I was drivng hard because I have in home daycare and her day was supposed to be over.

The wind became terrible and I had to slow to almost a stop because there were so many leaves blowing that I could not see.

The wind slowed and I drove on. About 5 miles from home I noticed that trees wer down everywhere. Almost all the roads were down to one lane because of trees blocking one side. I was only 2 miles from home but 3 of the roads that crossed the toll road were completelty blocked with trees or power lines.

That was the first time I ever saw a live powerline laying in a fire in the grass. I stayed far away from it.

As I keep doubling back I started following a very nice 2nd gen Green stealth with aftermarket wheels that looked nice. Anyone here?

As we drove by the trailer park I thought of the allof the trailer park tornado jokes. Then I noticed that most of the trailers were missing parts of the lower skirts. Then I had to pull over as the fire truck pulled in. I pulled over about 5 more times as more rescue equipment arrive. I heard later that 5 trailers were completley destroyed but nobody was killed.

Another mile and I noticed that the Tornado had touched down in the playground of the daycare my son used to go to
I looked like a truck hard driven through the playground and ran over the fence and all of the equipment. Nobody was hurt and the daycare was only closed one day.

I heard on the news that the Tornado took out the storage shacks for the tollroad maintence building and through several trees on to the toll road, closing it for several hours.

I took these pictures of teh maintence building the next day. I believe the pole that is broken in half is the tornado warning siren

 

[stealthII]

Wow, that looked like it did quite a bit of damage. Im glad that you and everyone else were ok. That couldve sucked pretty bad. By the way, what kind of camara do you have? Looks pretty clear.
Rich

 

[John Monnin]

HP photosmart 618

what kind of camara do you have? Looks pretty clear

Its a HP photosmart 618

Its a 2.11 mega pixle camera but I take all my pictures (including these) at 1/4 resolution to keep file sizes down. The only time I use full resolutions is when I am going to print on photo quality paper.

I paid extra for the 618 because it had a good optical zoom. HP has a cheaper camera with 2.1 Megapixle resolution but the lens was tiny and it had no optical zoom. Digital zoom always looks grainy to me.


John Monnin

 

[John Monnin]

Took a few more pictures today

I took a few more pictures today.

This is a picture of the daycare it doesn't look bad now that all of the swing sets are put back up. It was just scary to think it came that close to a daycare full of kids. This is why you send your kids to a daycare at a church. Divine intervention

The next picture is the trailer park. It was roped off so I could only get one picture of were a trailer used to be

The last picture was taken a few hunderd feet down path, from the daycare, of the Tornado path. It is hard to see but the tops were tore off of 50-100 pine trees.

The scariest part was that this Tornado was originally rated an F0 then Upgraded to a F1 Tornado. Thats a weak Tornado. A F3 stuck about 30 miles away. It was the First F3 Tornado to stike this Area since the Palm Sunday Tornados. I can't imagine what a F5 Tornado is like

John Monnin

 

[JeremyG]

Yeah, John and I were BOTH lucky.. that trailer park is probably no more than 2 miles from his house, it's also only about 2 miles from MY house, it went right BETWEEN our houses.

I knew it was bad when the winds at our house kept changing directions, I mean east, then west, then east then south, etc.

John, did you hear about the one in Osceola, it was only on the ground for less than a mile but it was coming RIGHT AT my house. If it would have been on the ground for 2 more miles it would have gotten me.

I saw close-up the damage done by the F3 west of South Bend, I DJed at the Carbon Malted Waffle plant for a company party, that was only about 1/2 mile from that one BIG building that has been on the news all week. This was probably a 40k square foot building and it was more than 1/2 gone. Then a trail thru a small woods. Amazing.

 

[mongorunner]

Re: Took a few more pictures today

I can't imagine what a F5 Tornado is like

John Monnin

you don't want to know

we had a F4 hit 9 years ago and it tore everything and i mean everything in its path away, i couldn't even imagine if it would have been a F5 cus their would have been soo many people that would have died. Tornadoes are scary because you will never know which direction they will go or what else they might do!

 

[John Monnin]

I lived in Texas for 5 years

I

we had a F4 hit 9 years ago and it tore everything and i mean everything in its path away, i couldn't even imagine if it would have been a F5 cus their would have been soo many people that would have died. Tornadoes are scary because you will never know which direction they will go or what else they might do!

I lived in Texas from 92-97, I was in Second floor apartments the whole time. I got to the point were if the tornado siren went off (and it did about 10 times a year) I just stayed in bed, There was no place to hide, no shelter at the apartment. I figured I would be dead anyways so if the tornado missed at least I would get a good nights rest.

I was also in Texas when the F4 hit the little town north of Austin (I can't remeber the name) My brother in law was within ten miles of that one. It destroyed every house in a town of 100-200 people. Not only did it dstroy the houses but it tore the foundations out of the ground All you coulsd see was pipes coming out of the dirt. That one killed a lot of people I only saw the damage on TV. In person it is unreal to see a tree 3 feet in diameter that was twisted (not bent) unit it shattered. I can drive around and see little touchdown areas and tell the exact path of the Tornado.

My buddy still lives north of Fort Worth and his wife watched the one that hit down town Fort Worth a few years ago. She just stopped her car went to a random house and begged for shelter.
She was already paranoid about tornados now she is a complete disaster everytime the sirens go off.

P.S. The closest touchdown was about 2 miles from my house. Following the damage trails, it must have gone over JeremyG's house within 1/4 of a mile in either direction .

John Monnin

 

[JeremyG]

Jeesh, now that I look at a better map, you are right John... it did go a little closer to me than I thought.

I did this little graphic, the JG is me, the JM is John's house.

It's amazing we had so many tornados this time of year!

 

[John Monnin]

Cool Picures for TV station

See link below for pictures taken by a security camera showing the building being blown over. Ans several cars upside down, Again this was only a F0 or F1 tornado.

http://www.wsbtradio.com/AMWHATSU.HTM

 

[New2MeStealth]

You talking about Round Rock? (little town north of Austin)

 

[akira410]

That reminds me of the time I lived in NC. I was sitting on my couch, saw it get strangely dark outside, and walked up to the front door to look outside. I saw the funnel cloud moving across the sky. I took cover. After the storm (which incidentally destroyed my best friends's home), I went out exploring. There were, in fact, two tornadoes. One had been in front of my home, the other had made a nice trail behind it. It was a little scarying thinking about how I barely missed having the house destroyed TWICE in the same storm.

 

[John Monnin]

I think it was round rock

You talking about Round Rock? (little town north of Austin)

I think it was round rock. When I visited my brother in law I took 35 from Dallas and got off at the Round Rock Exit, went east a few miles then headed south about 10 miles.

I think the town that was completely destroyed was actually North of Round rock.

John Monnin