Republican Senator Tom Coburn, Oklahoma, is crying that the costs for relief of the recent disastrous tornadoes must be offset by cutting back elsewhere.
I have the perfect answer…. Cut back on the subsidies the oil companies receive.
They are profiting more than ever. Plus they’re the ones, whether knowningly or unknowningly, that are a main component of our aggressive climate change. They can chip in. More…
Incredible footage of semi-trailer trucks literally sucked up in the air and tossed around as though they are match-box toys. Footage from the tornadoes which struck Dallas-Ft Worth on Tuesday. Heavy damage, yet no casualties. Very lucky.
If you have not seen this footage, it is amazing. I am from tornado alley, and my jaw still drops when I watch this. Found a nice HD upload from the CNN coverage, so you can really see nature at work here.
I am sure you have all heard by now that a powerful severe storm system moved across the United States on Friday, with a slew of tornadoes from Alabama to Indiana contributing to at least five deaths and threatening even more destruction as the day wore on.
Shadow had a bad day last week. A tornado sucked the 6-month-old Shar-Pei-Chow mix right out of his home, and then he went AWOL for a few days.
His owners were able to scramble to the safety of their basement with their other dog before the tornado severely damaged their house. After days of searching, sign posting, and internet hunting, the heartbroken family came to the sad conclusion that Shadow had perished.
Two tornadoes that struck western and central Massachusetts on June 1, 2011, are blamed for at least four deaths. There’s been extensive damage in Springfield, the state’s third largest city. Police there report dozens of injuries.
More footage of Springfield MA
Found in town of my ol’ alma mater, Purdue University.
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — An Indiana couple discovered a receipt that may have blown 525 miles from Joplin, Mo., to their porch — the longest recorded journey of debris from a tornado.
Tia Fritz contacted Ernest Agee, a Purdue University professor of earth and atmospheric sciences and tornado expert, when she and her husband discovered a receipt dated May 13 from Joplin Tire on the porch of their Royal Center, Indiana, home on Wednesday (May 25). Royal Center is in north central Indiana about 45 miles from Lafayette.
“This paper traveled more than twice as far as the longest distance recorded for debris from a storm,” said Agee, who now has the receipt. “The previous record was a cancelled check that traveled 210 miles after the 1915 tornado in Great Bend, Kansas.
The distance paper travels is directly proportional to the intensity of the tornado. This paper’s journey is a testament to the strength of the EF5 tornado that struck Joplin and what that city went through.”
In order to reach Indiana, the receipt, which was folded into one-quarter of its original size, would have to have been sucked into the tornado and then carried by the jet stream for 12.5 hours, according to Agee’s estimates using wind speeds and the distance traveled. It is not known exactly how long the receipt was on the porch before it was discovered.
The devastating tornado destroyed nearly one-third of Joplin and killed more than 132 people in the city of more than 50,000. The tornado is considered the deadliest to hit the United States in 65 years.
Dramatic before and after pictures of Joplin MO from the EF-5 tornado that laid a 6-mile long path of devastation.
Source: Google and MJ Harden, a GeoEye company
Source: Google/Aaron Fuhrman
Source: Google/Aaron Fuhrman
Source: Google/Aaron Fuhrman
Absolutely incredible footage. First they put it in reverse to get away from the funnel, then they start driving driving parallel to it.
From Holy Tornado:
After coming really close to a giant wedge tornado in Lookeba Oklahoma, Holy Tornado then raced south to Chickasha were we once again got our visual of the mesocyclone just of to our southwest. Before this thing had condensed all the way to the ground, you could see the concentrated area where the funnel was about to emerge from the meso. It seemed like there was just a cloud of debris on the ground underneath this meso forever until it had finally fully condensed. Thereafter as the twister gets closer, it intensifies dramatically right outside Jeremy’s window. Shortly after this, you see it hit several homes in a small community and also hits a trailor house and lofts it out the back of the twister. We immediately start searching through rubble and debris. Fortunately, nobody that we know so far has been reported dead from this area although there were some injuries. May god be with the families that were effected by this and may the recovery process get underway fast and be quickly completed.
Another video from Holy Tornado:
_________________________________________________
Other footage of the recent tornados:
_________________________________________________
This video gives me the chills as you can first hear the warning sirens, then the crashing as the tornado hits the building – thankfully they’re in a basement
_________________________________________________
TornadoVideosdotnet
_________________________________________________
TornadoVideosdotnet – Just wait until about 1:16 into the video… footage up close
Aerial photos of the Missouri city of Joplin taken on Tuesday showed the widespread devastation wrought by the record-breaking tornado that struck over the weekend, with entire neighborhoods reduced to rubble and massive buildings levelled. The National Weather Service said Sunday’s twister was an EF-5, the strongest rating assigned to tornadoes, with winds of more than 200 miles per hour. With 122 people confirmed dead so far, it was the deadliest single twister since the National Weather Service began keeping official records in 1950 and the eighth-deadliest in US history.
Currently estimated to have been an EF4 (166-200mph winds) strength twister. Death toll currently at 89 and still counting. 75% of the city has been devastated, leveled – 2,000 buildings. Estimated to have been a mile wide. Debris found 70 miles away.
The tornado slammed into St. John’s Hospital, doing damage from the top to the bottom of the building. One witness reported seeing a victim blown out of the building when the twister hit.
Will add more video through the day as it comes in.
On the following video, from the person who took it, “The video i took while at Fastrip on east 20th street. We huddled in the back of the store until the glass got sucked out , then ran into the walk in storage fridge. Sorry for the lack of visuals but the audio is pretty telling of how intense the storm was. The tornado hits at around 1:20 seconds.”
Footage in from MSNBC on tornado damage in Joplin MO and Minneapolis MN.
For several more pieces of footage, please click here
For several more pieces of footage, please click here
Tornadoes ripped through parts of the Midwest today killing at least 24 people in a Missouri town where a hospital was damaged, and at least one person in Minneapolis.
These storms were part of a series that battered the Midwest tonight. Tornado warnings and watches were posted from Texas to Michigan.
Those storms followed a tornado Saturday night that swept through a small eastern Kansas town, killing one person and destroying at least 20 homes, as severe thunderstorms pelted the region with hail that some residents described as the size of baseballs, authorities said today.
AP Photo/The Capital-Journal, An
AP Photo/The Capital-Journal, An
AP Photo/The Star Tribune, Marli
AP Photo/The Capital-Journal, An
AP Photo/The Star Tribune, Marli
AP Photo/The Star Tribune, Marl
AP Photo/The Capital-Journal, An
Jaime Green/Wichita Eagle
AP Photo/The Star Tribune, David
Jaime Green/Wichita Eagle
Jaime Green/Wichita Eagle
AP Photo/The Capital-Journal, An
Photos from Detroit Free Press
Picture above shows the damage to St. John’s Regional Medical Center in Joplin, Mo., after it was hit by a tornado on Sunday
A tornado steamrolled across Joplin, Mo., Sunday night, directly hitting a hospital and causing many deaths, according to various reports.
The city, which took a direct hit from the tornado, according to the reports, was left isolated in the destruction, with telephone connections largely cut off.
“The power lines have gone down – we can’t reach anyone there,” said Bill Davis, a meteorologist at the Springfield office of the National Weather Service. He said any assessment of exactly how strong the tornado was will have to wait until tomorrow, when experts drive to Joplin, but he said that on a scale from 1 to 10, the tornado looked to be “on the 8-9 level.”
The News-Leader of Springfield quoted Ryan Nicholls, the head of the local emergency management office, as confirming that there were 24 fatalities. The number of injuries was unknown, the newspaper said. But in a separate call to the office, officials said they were still trying to determine how many fatalities there were.
The storm blew out the windows of St. John’s Regional Medical Center, a large structure on the city’s south side, and swathes of its walls were ripped off.
One Joplin resident, Donald Davis, described to the News-Leader driving through the city, saying that Joplin High School had its windows broken out and part of the roof missing. A church across the street was demolished, he said.
He also described damage to a grocery store, and a large building, the Hampshire Terrace Apartments.
“They’re flattened,” Mr. Davis said. “You just can’t believe it. There must have been 150 units. One lady had a bathrobe around her. Others just had blankets around them.”
Mr. Davis of the National Weather Service said there was a tornado in May 2008 near Joplin that “very much looked like this supercell,” it but missed the city. Still, that tornado, he said, had more than a dozen fatalities.
Check back for updates, photos and videos
Post from The New York Times
By NOAM COHEN
Published: May 22, 2011
Video footage by Clay Hasenfuss | Tuscaloosa AL
Governor Robert Bentley of Alabama declared a state of emergency after 25 were killed by storms on Wednesday alone. That was before the tornado hit Tuscaloosa, where 100 were said to have been injured. Another 11 people were killed in Mississippi, two in Georgia and one in Tennessee.
The Tuscaloosa tornado was one of several that hit Alabama. It tore through the city after 5pm, sweeping past a major medical centre, the University of Alabama campus and a high school.
Many parts of the state had been on a tornado watch throughout the day, prompting schools, government offices and businesses to close early or shut down. One of the Mississippi dead was a father trying to shelter his daughter at a campsite when he was killed.
Mayor Walter Maddox of Tuscaloosa said that sections of the city had been destroyed. News footage showed paramedics lifting a child out of a flattened home, with many other buildings in the city of more than 83,000 people also reduced to rubble.
“The city experienced widespread damage from a tornado that cut a path of destruction deep into the heart of the city,” Mr Maddox said in a statement.
_____________________
4/28/11 UPDATE:
WASHINGTON (AP) — Some of the killer tornadoes that ripped across the South may have been among the largest and most powerful ever recorded, experts suggested, leaving a death toll that is approaching that of a tragic “super outbreak” of storms almost 40 years ago.
“There’s a pretty good chance some of these were a mile wide, on the ground for tens of miles and had wind speeds over 200 mph,” said Harold Brooks of the National Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman, Okla.
Full story, please click here.
Good Morning America: Tuscaloosa, Alabama Terrorized by Tornadoes, Hundreds Dead video | April 28, 2011
_____________________
PERSONAL NOTE: I grew up in tornado alley, but have never witnessed anything like this…. There are no words to describe what these people have gone through, and will go through….
_____________________
Video footage by Clay Hasenfuss | Tuscaloosa AL
_____________________
