In the mid 80s we had a tornado pass just south of the
house in Greenwood, IN. You could hear it from the
house, but it was so dark outside you couldn't see
anything. We didn't have a basement, so we hunkered
down in the corner of the house and covered ourselves
with some heavy blankets.
The devastation was similar to what you described
below - it was like a giant lawn mower or bulldozer
went through. The rolling hills south of us, around
Martinsville, IN, had this neat path about 100 feet
wide just wandering over the hills and fields. Stuff
on either side appeared untouched.
Nasty stuff, tornadoes.
Dan
--- Rich Thomas <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
> About 1974 a huge tornado blew about 30mi through
> Indiana, went through
> a little town called Monticello and picked up 2
> spans of a steel truss
> bridge, lifted them INTACT and dropped them in the
> river about 200yd
> away. Lot of the town destroyed. I was in college
> in W. Lafayette, and
> in the flying club. Was out at the little airport
> washing/waxing a
> plane, when my buddy and I noticed it was getting
> really weird outside
> -- yellow sky, hot/humid, no bugs buzzing, no birds
> to be seen, the
> airport dogs were digging in, hairs on our arms
> standing up, everyone
> had left and forgot to tell us to go home or get
> underground. Se we
> decided to leave, got about halfway back to campus
> (maybe 8 miles),
> black as night, when it hit, could not see the hood
> of the car it was
> raining so hard. I pulled over to what I thought
> was the side of the
> road to make sure I did not get rear-ended or
> something, we rode it out
> (ride was the word too) for a few minutes til it
> passed and sun came out.
>
> Got back to campus, tornado had lifted off the
> ground just before 2 8-
> or 10-story dorms and went over them, then back down
> to ground. Lot of
> guys in the dorm were watching it, too dumb I guess
> to go to the
> basement, and were amazed it did that. Heard about
> what else it did
> later on the news, was like Armageddon around there.
> My buddy and I
> realized too that we were not too smart (and that is
> really something
> when you are 20 yr old!), could have been slung
> about in the car like a
> foam cup. We figured we had been real close to
> where it went but it was
> raining so hard we could not see or hear.
>
> A couple of days later we took the plane up and flew
> the whole path of
> the tornado. Looked like a D1100 (that would be a
> real big one) Cat had
> plowed about 30miles of farmland, town, woods,
> bridges, anything else.
> It was incredible. Did not have a good camera at
> the time (or video!),
> that would have been something to have. In some
> places you could see
> where it went between a barn and house, maybe 100
> ft, leaving the
> furrow, but nothing hurt. In other places, houses
> and barns just
> exploded but a tree sitting there OK. There was
> debris over about 100
> sqmi, junk everywhere -- cars, trucks, tractors,
> building bits, trees,
> lotsa mobile homes. Saw a couple of 2x4s stuck
> through phone poles like
> a skewer through a mushroom. We flew low and slow
> for an hour or two,
> finally came back and just said, "ohshit." Talk
> about humility.
>
> I've been near a couple other small ones, but
> nothing like that. Now I
> have hurricanes to worry about, not sure which is
> worse.
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