Tornados and close calls--have you had one

[sailor55330]

I know some members here recently suffered from the massive storms in MN, and I sincerely hope everything works out in the end. The recent tornado threads got me thinking--even though statistically the odds are small, how close have you come?

I was mowing my yard as a kid when this one hit. We lived in the neighborhood it struck. I was less than 200 yards from the first house it destroyed. I remember seeing what looked to be small matchbook sized objects in the sky and then seeing them hit the ground has 4x8 sheets of roof deck. There was no warning, just some rain in the distance that you could see coming, like the way you can see rain across a big field. After looking at the trees, many of them were broken off about 50-75ft above the ground. As near as we could figure, the funnel missed our house by less than 75 yards. Tornados still scare the crap out of me till this day.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marion,...rnado_outbreak

[dbhost]

I have had 4. The first in 1997 I think it was, when I was in college, I was in a late afternoon U.S. History class and I distinctly remember being awe struck by what I was hearing. (We were discussing Jim Crow laws and the civil rights movement at the time) with a pretty big late summer storm overhead. It spun a twister down on campus about 200 yards away from our building, it touched down blew away a small storage building, and a church next to campus before taking off again. THEN the tornado alarm went off (gee thanks...).

Second time was in spring 2002. I had just bought the house I am in, and had gone to Best Buy in Houston to get a TV for the living room. I was driving back home when the storm brewed up. As I was driving down Highway 3 toward League City, I could see a funnel dropping down in my rear view mirror, and started moving down the road, tornado sirens screaming, and me trying to make my little Ranger move as fast as it could to outrun this monster... I crossed the bridge over Clear Lake, and the funnel dropped into the lake and went to work as a water spout and just sort of stopped. To say the least I was praying a LOT then...

Third was the one where my fence got blown out.

Fourth was during Hurricane Ike. I don't care what the weather service says, there were tornadoes all over the place where we evacuated to during the storm!

Each time the twisters I was exposed to were small, but they were big enough to scare the snot out of me...

In all honesty, I would LOVE to move back up to Oregon if there were jobs up there to go to... All I would have to worry about there is volcanoes and mud slides...

[billwmeyer]

I live in Kansas, and there have been a few bad ones nearby, like Joplin, I have had no close calls myself. As I wrote earlier, my daughter's house was just a few blocks from that one, and my niece was slightly injured in it.

I have seen 3 from a distance, and none of those did any significant damage. I hope to not be around any more.

Bill

[Pappy]

As I said in the other thread, I got a real close look at the F5 that hit Wichita Falls April 3, 1964. Wichita Falls is in one of the infamous 'Tornado Alley' areas of the country. Most seem to hit the north side of town, tracking between the Wichita and Red Rivers. The house I grew up in is about 3-4 miles north of the Wichita River. It was hit and damaged 3 times when I was growing up. Each time my parents picked up the pieces, repaired the damage, and life went on.

Ironically, the town got its name from the natural falls on the river. The falls no longer exists. It was destroyed in the late 1800's by a tornado.

[cabinetman]

I had two 10'x12' steel sheds 2' apart. Tornadoes accompany hurricanes, and during Wilma, one took the outer shell of one of my sheds (one on the right) up and away over a 6' fence. It left everything inside disheveled. None of it was ever found.
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[BobSch]

My first was in 1965. I was in high school and had stayed late to finish a project. When the alarm went off they chased all of us into a center hall until the all-clear. I was driving home when I went through a puddle that killed my engine (a 1940 Plymouth with a flat head six.) I started walking, just waiting to hear the freight train sound that meant I should bend over and kiss it goodbye. Got home and found the shingles gone on one side of our roof.

Two years later I was driving home after picking up a new car when I saw a twister hit the local airport about a mile from where I was.

The ones this weekend missed us--one to the west and the other to the east.

[LCHIEN]

in 1992 we had moved in about 3 months before.
We were 2 miles north of the house at a shopping center off I-10 that runs E-W. We saw a tornado north-east of of us going south-southwest and apparently cross the freeway to the east of us. As it went along we could see big sparks at the base of it I guess from where power lines were being shorted out. We couldn't see too well where it went after crossing the freeway.

When we went home a while later we found the main streets all blocked by sherriffs and emergency vehicles. The tornado had destroyed a few homes a few blocks due east of us, then skipped over our house and was seen to touch down a few blocks due west of us and then bounced off to who knows where. Skipped right over my house is what I figured. between 1/10th and 1/4 mile from us.

IT was not a foundation-scouring F5 tornado but there were quite a few cars turned over, and some expensive homes were heavily damaged garages flattened and roofs torn off.