So, there were tornadoes...
Early yesterday morning, a huge tornado, (or 2-3 mid-sized tornadoes in quick succession-THEY AREN'T SURE WHICH-there were at least 11 tornadoes in Texas and Oklahoma Friday night/early Saturday morning, and it seems several found their way to Central Texas) ripped through town and the surrounding area. I was thankfully at my parents' overnight about 15 miles out of town.
My phone started blaring non-stop with warnings. This...is not overly unusual. We get tornado warnings a few times a year and a twister at least once a year most years, but usually the weather restricts itself to thunderstorms and bad wind. We do have smaller tornadoes every few years (including one that ripped half the roof off our house when I was a teenager) but usually smaller. (For context: there have been 52 tornadoes in the county since 1950, though not all happen in towns.) So I went out in my thin little jammies in the wind and rain to move my car closer to the house then went back to sleep because...I live in Texas and you can tell at my parent’s place when the wind reaches “things that shouldn’t be flying are flying” levels and you cannot sleep through that. Bad weather is actually usually worse out in the country than inside so my parents and I weren't overly worried.* Their power only went out for about half an hour and we were talking about how I should stop by the shop to make sure no windows were broken and there wasn't any flooding inside when I came back to town. Then the power came back and they said it was a tornado.
I came back to town and it started with the "normal" damage...flooding in some parts, leaves everywhere and tree branches and limbs on the side of the road. As I got further into town there was more damage but still not extreme. Then I got to work, saw everything was ok, and looked across the street to see this:
That sign has been there for ages. About 2 blocks further down on our side of the street is this:
(across the street from there and not shown is a Mexican food restaurant missing a good chunk of the roof. I have a suspicion that might be what happened to the sign across the street.)
A little bit further down the road is the local college. The buildings looked fine but it has several fewer trees and the (many) remaining ones are a lot smaller now in some cases.
I live several further miles down the street so you can imagine my relief when I stopped seeing bent metal and tarp-covered roofs. My apartment complex, thankfully, escaped damage. I found out later that we lost power there when the storms started and it only came back on a little while before I got home. (I did check my refrigerator when I got home and things were still cold.)
Unfortunately, they reported later that most of the damage was downtown and in the north part of town and a nearby community, largely residential. Some people with businesses in the affected areas spent yesterday in lawn chairs in front of their businesses (or in shifts watching a neighbors’s business too) waiting for someone to come and board up the shattered storefronts. No, really, lawn chairs and beer coolers. For context, the 2 places combined have less than 105,000 residents. Yesterday morning over 25k combined residents, a local school and multiple businesses had no power. Today it’s down to somewhere between 2500-3000 residences, plus businesses. The elementary school that lost power was initially set up for people who had to leave their homes until the storm got it later. The school won’t have power until late monday at the earliest and MOST places are expected to have power by late Monday, but some won’t. Several areas of town have officially been declared disaster zones with multiple families ordered to evacuate because their homes are now uninhabitable. People in those areas who didn’t have to evacuate are under a police-enforced curfew because there’s so much dangerous stuff exposed and on the ground that will take weeks to clean up and they don’t want people wandering around after that. (Human-shaped jackals are going there to look at the damage and see people try to pick pieces of their home off the street because people suck, requiring police to order bystanders to beat it in some places.)
This is our local river, which is usually half dry, and rarely even fills the banks after heavy rain:
This is the street right outside a nearby high school:
(I know this flooding is minor as compared to many other cases, but we spend the majority of most years in drought status.)
This is a 137 year old tree at the courthouse (that my mother almost always parked under when she was a probation officer)before this weekend:
This is the same tree yesterday:
Most other pictures I’ve found are of the interiors and exteriors of houses, so I’ll spare you that.
Anyway, “Climate change isn’t real” but at least 11 tornadoes ripped through 2 states over a few hours and were strong enough to all but destroy urban areas BUILT SPECIFICALLY TO WITHSTAND HIGH WINDS.
*I would like to stress here that I did not sleep through a tornado. I slept through a thunderstorm about 20 miles from a tornado.
My phone started blaring non-stop with warnings. This...is not overly unusual. We get tornado warnings a few times a year and a twister at least once a year most years, but usually the weather restricts itself to thunderstorms and bad wind. We do have smaller tornadoes every few years (including one that ripped half the roof off our house when I was a teenager) but usually smaller. (For context: there have been 52 tornadoes in the county since 1950, though not all happen in towns.) So I went out in my thin little jammies in the wind and rain to move my car closer to the house then went back to sleep because...I live in Texas and you can tell at my parent’s place when the wind reaches “things that shouldn’t be flying are flying” levels and you cannot sleep through that. Bad weather is actually usually worse out in the country than inside so my parents and I weren't overly worried.* Their power only went out for about half an hour and we were talking about how I should stop by the shop to make sure no windows were broken and there wasn't any flooding inside when I came back to town. Then the power came back and they said it was a tornado.
I came back to town and it started with the "normal" damage...flooding in some parts, leaves everywhere and tree branches and limbs on the side of the road. As I got further into town there was more damage but still not extreme. Then I got to work, saw everything was ok, and looked across the street to see this:
That sign has been there for ages. About 2 blocks further down on our side of the street is this:
(across the street from there and not shown is a Mexican food restaurant missing a good chunk of the roof. I have a suspicion that might be what happened to the sign across the street.)
A little bit further down the road is the local college. The buildings looked fine but it has several fewer trees and the (many) remaining ones are a lot smaller now in some cases.
I live several further miles down the street so you can imagine my relief when I stopped seeing bent metal and tarp-covered roofs. My apartment complex, thankfully, escaped damage. I found out later that we lost power there when the storms started and it only came back on a little while before I got home. (I did check my refrigerator when I got home and things were still cold.)
Unfortunately, they reported later that most of the damage was downtown and in the north part of town and a nearby community, largely residential. Some people with businesses in the affected areas spent yesterday in lawn chairs in front of their businesses (or in shifts watching a neighbors’s business too) waiting for someone to come and board up the shattered storefronts. No, really, lawn chairs and beer coolers. For context, the 2 places combined have less than 105,000 residents. Yesterday morning over 25k combined residents, a local school and multiple businesses had no power. Today it’s down to somewhere between 2500-3000 residences, plus businesses. The elementary school that lost power was initially set up for people who had to leave their homes until the storm got it later. The school won’t have power until late monday at the earliest and MOST places are expected to have power by late Monday, but some won’t. Several areas of town have officially been declared disaster zones with multiple families ordered to evacuate because their homes are now uninhabitable. People in those areas who didn’t have to evacuate are under a police-enforced curfew because there’s so much dangerous stuff exposed and on the ground that will take weeks to clean up and they don’t want people wandering around after that. (Human-shaped jackals are going there to look at the damage and see people try to pick pieces of their home off the street because people suck, requiring police to order bystanders to beat it in some places.)
This is our local river, which is usually half dry, and rarely even fills the banks after heavy rain:
This is the street right outside a nearby high school:
(I know this flooding is minor as compared to many other cases, but we spend the majority of most years in drought status.)
This is a 137 year old tree at the courthouse (that my mother almost always parked under when she was a probation officer)before this weekend:
This is the same tree yesterday:
Most other pictures I’ve found are of the interiors and exteriors of houses, so I’ll spare you that.
Anyway, “Climate change isn’t real” but at least 11 tornadoes ripped through 2 states over a few hours and were strong enough to all but destroy urban areas BUILT SPECIFICALLY TO WITHSTAND HIGH WINDS.
*I would like to stress here that I did not sleep through a tornado. I slept through a thunderstorm about 20 miles from a tornado.