PBBPaul: Did You Weather The Storm?

[phaeton]

For viewers just joining us, there was a very powerful storm that moved through south central Wisconsin to south eastern Wisconsin.

 

Basically, reports are F-2 to F-5 tornadoes from Madison to Milwaukee, speculated last evening (around 11:00pm) was 100+ homes and one fatality

 

Me and Mine are ok, but I couldn't stay up for the report of the Milwaukee and surrounding areas, and Paul is right in that path.

 

Chime in, good fella!

[PBBPaul]

Hey, I was thinking about you too. I guess you're far enough South that it missed you. How's Sarah?

 

The storms passed just to our South so we got nothing but a good lightening show. My in-laws in Mukwonago were right in the path and a tornado touched down a few miles from their house but they're fine too.

[phaeton]

Wow! the Stoughton tornado made CNN front page! Cheggitout!

 

No word about the Milwaukee area, though... so that's probably good. PBBPaul isn't a very 'prolific' poster so he probably hasn't stopped by yet...

 

Hopefully nothing happened to the house we're about to close on up north of Madison

[Spencer Crewe]

Um....Phaeton? look up....

 

 

Cheers!

Spencer

[phaeton]

Odd... I didn't see your response until after i posted mine

 

Glad to hear you and yours are ok. Sarah's fine too. She was in a Verona restaurant at the time with her grandma and there was a small one nearby. Some of the video footage I saw on t.v. looked a LOT like their street, but fortunately it wasn't.

 

As for me, it was all north of me. I got some thunder and rain, that's about it.

[PBBPaul]

What was wild was that debris was floating down out of the sky in Milwaukee - from 75 miles away in Madison!

 

People were apparently finding mail and miscellaneous stuff all over the place. Kinda scary.

[phaeton]

From CNN Picture Gallery:

 

"Debris left by Thursday's hurricane in Stoughton, Wisconsin, is practically unrecognizable as the remnants of a house. "

 

umm.. Hurricane?

 

So what happens when a tornado crosses over a house made of concrete and brick? Does it all just crumble down into the basement and crush everyone that's hiding?

 

What was wild was that debris was floating down out of the sky in Milwaukee - from 75 miles away in Madison!

 

Yeah, that's a ways away... I recall reading a few years ago that it started raining frogs and fish onto some town in Texas- they were apparently picked up from a lake about 20 miles away, and the tornado petered out just before it got to there and it all came down.

[Tedster]

 

Originally posted by phaeton So what happens when a tornado crosses over a house made of concrete and brick? Does it all just crumble down into the basement and crush everyone that's hiding?

 

 

It depends on a lot of different factors...but basically you're much safer in the basement than you are upstairs. I don't think there'd be any set way to predict a type of damage left by a tornado. Damage paths can be so weird, one house demolished and something practically next door almost untouched.

 

Glad you're all safe. We had some kickass storms here last night...a train echo...across northeastern Kansas, northern Missouri and southern Iowa. We were on the southern edge of most of the action.

 

A train echo...for those unfamiliar with the term, is a line of storms that propagate along the line, rather than moving. You basically have storms decaying and redeveloping over the same area...rather than moving away. HUGE flash flood producers.

[PBBPaul]

Hurricane, tornado, you know it's one o' dem t'ings.

 

Did you look at the video footage on the page? There was a house on there that is part brick with what looks like a frame expansion. The frame part is gone but the brick part is still there.

 

Tornados are unbelievable. Many years ago, my father was up at our cottage in the northwoods when a tornado came through. It touched down less than 50 feet from the house and ripped a huge swath through the woods. The house was untouched.

[PBBPaul]

Hey Ted, I thought you'd check in. How's Lindsay?

[phaeton]

Hurricane, tornado, you know it's one o' dem t'ings.

 

 

In some of the video footage i saw last night, the guys at the country club (the ones that say "at least we had beer") were filming it, and i heard one of them say "we've got nothing to worry about, we're surrounded by water here"

 

Then the news anchors had to make a point "Once again, that commonly held belief that tornadoes won't cross water is a complete myth"...

 

...never heard that before.

 

It touched down less than 50 feet from the house and ripped a huge swath through the woods. The house was untouched.

 

Out in Oregon (the "oh-reh-gun" one, not the "oh-ree-gawn" one) my ma n pa had (what was reported as) a microburst rip up some trees around their yard. They also had a 30' section of a snapped off ponderosa pine stick in the back yard like a javelin. That tree originated from about 500 yards up the street. Where the tree came from, all the trees in that area (and the house that was in them) were all flattened or tossed like matchsticks. The little ramshackle house that was between the house that was destroyed and my parent's house that was significantly damaged was completely unscathed.

 

My dad was standing outside when the trees came flying from up the road. He says it was pretty freaky to see 20-30 trees splinter and go flying 200 feet into the air. I forget where I was at the time.

 

btw... how is lindsay, ted?

[Tedster]

 

Originally posted by PBBPaul Hey Ted, I thought you'd check in. How's Lindsay?

 

 

Thanks for asking, Paul, and Phaeton...

 

She's out in LA with Holly...and my wife. They're staying at a hotel, cruising around (my wife rented a car, something they wouldn't have been able to do), looking at apartments and areas...and hopefully getting a realistic assessment of the task at hand, whether it's feasible or not.

 

We'll see.