What's the CRAZIEST spooky shit you've seen in the aftermath of a tornado?

When I was about 12, I saw a neighbors bull, still alive, impaled on a broken tree limb about 20 feet off the ground.

They shot him while he was still in the tree.

Wind doesn't blow...it sucks i.e. creates low pressure zone opposite the object and sucks or pulls it within the zone.

Bernoulli's principle or law seems to be the dominating fluid dynamic of a tornado, and basically all extreme low pressure systems that cause the greatest storm damage.
[link to www.infobloom.com (secure)]

My guess is that the 2x4 is more accurately being pulled or "pultruded" through the tree and perhaps the bending and stretching of the tree's trunk fibers at the simultaneous moment of impact allows the softer, drier lumber to pierce through the tighter moist wood grain of the living tree?

I saw pine needles driven/pulled through 2x4's after a small tornado hit a couple of houses in our neighboorhood.

I saw part of a dairy queen sign in my backyard. It wasn't embedded in a tree or anything. Just lying there.

Thx for sharing your story, TF! I grew up w/ hurricanes and when it looked like Tornado Alley shifted to include southeast coastline states, lot of us ol' timers now truly value basements and root cellars. The younger generations don't have a clue about how they double as storm shelters.

That cat obviously was meant to land on your porch screen! Doesn't surprise me hearing it was fearless after that.

Damn, that's heart breaking. But that's farm life reality when tornadoes hit.

We've had small twisters hit a few turkey and chicken farms in my region and it's heart breaking for the farmers.

Whoa!! Now I'm gonna' have to fix a cocktail and go rummaging 'round my various piles/stacks of books to find something you just referenced.

You guys droppin' in w/ your thoughts, memories, knowledge are so much appreciated! A lot of us were led here for the unending quest of knowledge and is still the best cyber bar to drop in on.

OK, as I'm playing catch-up from being offline 'til now, this thread just caught my eye....
Thread: Omaha Weather Radar

Anyone got a theory as to WTH that is?! Omaha Radar pic

Featherless chickens on the farm

I had a twister, a very strange twister pick up my house. I passed out for a while but when I came to and walked outside I was in a strange land with little people celebrating my house landing on top of someone with pointy shoes.

Then this witchy looking woman started telling me I killed her sister. After that I came across a lion, a man made of tin, and a scarecrow. It was trippy as hell.

We ended up going on an adventure following a yellow brick road and ended up finding out the man behind the curtain is a Rothschild.

I was given a pair of ruby studded cowboy boots by some pretty lady and she told me to click them 3 times and I'd be sent back home.


I woke up in my bed like nothing had ever happened. It was spooky. I think I should make a movie out this.

Last Edited by Just Passing Through..... on 03/19/2021 06:57 PM

IVE HEARD OF THIS AND COKE BOTTLE STUCK IN TREES.

AND I BET THAT THERE WAS SOME BULLSHIT ON THE GROUND SOON AS WELL..UH.

It was pretty disturbing. I've even dreamed about it over the years. Mooooooooooo.

A movie switching from black & white, to colour.

I was in Wichita at Boeing, the alarms went off and we all headed into the SCIF. Everyone says this but it sounded like a freight train as it passed over. The change in pressure caused drywall dust to spray out on the carpet in little triangle shapes. Outside it took the Directors F-250 and parked it on the side of the building, sitting on its tailgate. Other cars in the parking lot were swirled about. The tornado took out two B-1s and the gym at McConnell AFB. Then it headed across a field planted with milo and plowed a perfect one lane road. Interesting how it hopped over the real road and continued plowing again.

Shawnee: “That’s the Place of Angry Winds."
White man: “Let’s build a town there!”

Just found your thread before I take my evening nap, Zen!

I haven't personally been witness to an aftermath of a
tornado strike (glad I haven't)...but I do recall a special
weather channel program where one of the tornado hunters
got tricked by a twister "changing direction" and actually
killing at least one of the storm hunters. The reporter was
very distraught reporting it--you could tell they were close
friends. I can't recall his name...I think it was Matt (?)
he was a regular on the weather channel.

Also the special they did on the 2013 outbreak that was
especially severe. That one did a HERMUNGOUS amount of
damage.

So GLAD YOU ARE SAFE!!


The Oracle's Cookie

Indeed, JPT....

As an adult now, when I see this scene (and others) I wish my ride was as cool as a pink bubble. <side-eye glance towards my antique Electrolux and old broom next to it in the corner>

At least folks out there in fly-over country can see these bitches comin' whereas us folks w/ lots of trees and rolling terrain, we are so screwed.

In my younger (wilder) days, my late hubby and I would think nothing of hoppin' into our 4WD truck and chase super cells that popped up near us. Once in a while, a neighbor would join us who safeguarded the beer cooler in back seat.

Yo' O's C....I know of a couple of cases as you mentioned. And if memory is right, the storm chaser who died was live streaming to the end.

Was always fascinated w/ my Elders (both kin and n'bors) who mainly relied upon their gut instinct when it came to severe weather bouts. And also recall a few of 'em mumbling how shit has changed, microcosm to macrocosm levels. Maybe that's w/ the advent of hi-tech these days but still not much progress as to the science of tornadoes.

Mentioned in another reply of mine how my old man and I would storm chase if something cropped up close to us. He was a man of science but also had a strong gut instinct about things. We took it on as a challenge to see up close and personal severe weather but eventually gave it up as farm life responsibilities increased.

Oh, to be young-n-dumb again! (sigh)

I ALSO HEARD OF A STORY WHERE A SURVIVOR WAS PICKED UP IN ONE AND ALSO HEARD A COW SCREAMING AS IT WENT BY HIM..UH.

The home my Dad, Brother and myself built was destroyed in the 1991 Andover KS F-5 tornado. Thankfully, my parents had sold the property two years previously but we still went out there the next day as a family to offer our help to our old neighbors. For about 1/4-mile all around, the Sheriff already had the entire neighborhood cordoned off from sight-seers, but the Deputy passed us once My Dad explained why we were there. And, I was lugging along my video camera.

It was a bittersweet day with people silently moving around picking at the rubble, the only sound the loud whine of chainsaws as they cut away debris flung everywhere by the "moving finger of God". They despaired at their losses but were still thankful to even be alive as they quietly cried and hugged one another, a shared look of deep pain in their eyes.

My camera picked up many images that day but two especially stand out:

When I was 16, I helped my dad mount a new mailbox post at the end of our 100' driveway. This was back in the mid-60's when likkered-up J.D.'s liked to cruise dark suburban neighborhoods and bash mailboxes with a baseball bat. So, my Dad and I installed a 3" steel post that would give them a good shock when they tried it again. We set that post in a 2'x2'x2' concrete footing so NOTHING would move it. And for the next three decades, nothing ever did.

But my camera showed that after the twister the mailbox -and entire post and concrete block- was turned 180-degrees around, facing what used to be the house... but the ground around the base of that post was STILL UNDISTURBED. Not a single blade of grass was broken and the post was still solidly mounted in the cement and couldn't be turned by itself. And I thought, "HOLY SHIT!"

But there was another surprise waiting for me in our old backyard...

When I was about 10, my Mom decided we needed a windbreak out back since there weren't too many trees to stop the gales. So, we trooped into the old Ford coupe, went out into "the sticks" and dug up a bunch of Cottonwood seedlings by a creek bank to fill in the gaps. One tree was my own to water and fret over, hoping one day I'd be climbing it's big branches. And boy, did it grow but by then I was too old to dream of a Tarzan-treehouse.

Across the street from us we had a neighbor who had a large carpentry shop where he crafted custom furniture, gunstocks and just about anything else you could imagine from wood. That place was packed with tools... and his massive barbed-wire collection!

As I went out back to see if my old tree was still standing I was delighted to see that it was. But, with one addition: when the storm hit Mr. Seery's workshop, it picked up a 10" circular saw blade and spun it in the air until it sank a good 4" into the trunk of that Cottonwood tree. It was embedded so deeply, when I flicked it with my finger, it didn't ring but just gave off a dull thud. It made my blood run cold to think what that blade could've done to a human body.

I learned later that when KG&E [the Kansas Gas and Electric company] linemen came out to restring power cables, they cut down my old tree but saved that entire section of the trunk with the saw blade still intact. And it's still on display today in their corporate offices. KG&E may have changed their name over the decades, but that tree trunk still sends chills down the spine of all who see it.

A grim reminder of just how puny we superior human beings really are.

BTW: I eventually left Kansas and moved to Northern California for ten years where I experienced many other rumblings from God: earthquakes. And given the choice of experiencing an EQ or a tornado, I'll take a 'quake anytime! You see, whenever we hear those wailing tornado sirens or inevitably relentless TV-weather reports, we KNOW disaster could be only a few minutes away... and that only builds the dread of what could be a life-ending few moments.

But, with an EQ you have no warning; no time to worry and barely enough to pray. The irony is that during the past few years here in Wichita KS we've had increasingly frequent swarms of EQ's ourselves... with the most recent flurry just last weekend.

Proving you may run from nature but you can NEVER hide!

Last Edited by GSB/LTD on 03/20/2021 10:29 AM

I saw where one picked up a riding lawn mower and dropped it through a roof, leaving it resting on the ceiling joists with two wheels poking through the sheetrock. That was about 10 years ago. I don't recall the strength.

An EF1 hit my neighborhood in 2019. I was trapped on my front porch. The suction prevented me from opening the door to get inside. I watched an empty garbage can fly through the air and smash into 5 vehicles including my wife's car. That one can did almost $10,000 in damage. One trampoline knocked down 4 runs of wooden privacy fence.

April 2011

20 miles north of Chattanooga found a mail box with mail still in it from Tupelo, MS (all of 200 miles away)

Fire truck sitting in middle of lake in Alabama

pavement stripped right off the road leaving just gravel

Those are incredible memories, sir!! You lived right in the thick of it.

And I'm sure that chunk of tree w/ the embedded saw blade is quite the conversation piece. A true testament to the power of Mother Nature and the grace of the Grand Architect.

One of my BFFs out in NorCali says when you move, you just trade one set of worries w/ another.

Oh lawdy yes! Several of my area's Fakebook n'hood group pgs were seeing posts like 'hey, so-n-so, I think your kids' trampoline is in my backyard,' 'FOUND....6-man tent w/ mangled poles, was red but now is covered in brown mud' etc.

And it's the really whacky crazy shit, just like all you listed JJ, that made me want to really study severe weather growing up. Before computers, the internet.

Thx everyone! This has been interesting to hear everyone's stories. Hoping everyone has a great, peaceful wkend w/ gorgeous sunrises and sunsets!

I had a client who had been an insurance man in Texas, he told me that the worst part of his job was going out after tornadoes and looking for bodies in trees.

I was in the debris field of one that blew up trailer homes and turned cars upside down. I was out trying to wake all the neighbors as it was hot, after ten at night and they had their air on and the trailers were sealed tight.

I was watching tv when it said take cover.

Out in it, the adrenaline kicked in and everything suddenly went into slow motion and I saw all kinds of projectiles go by my head. Later I found a huge box of Christmas ornaments on my lawn, completely unbroken.

The next day we went out and saw the line on the ground that the tornado had traveled, it picked up a few feet from where I was , made a right turn and broke off a line of heavy oak trees.

We followed the trail over ten miles and everywhere we saw where trailers had exploded.

Prayer works.

Wow, you damn skippy, prayer works! How blessed you are to have that thing skip and turn on you.

And yes, I know a few in the insurance and first responders sectors and some of their stories are interesting as well. Not all have happy endings unfortunately.

Not tornadoes, but hurricanes. Saw a whole pine tree, roots and all, about a sixty footer fly over a house during Katrina. Recently during Michael saw an RV implode and then take flight. Have a pic somewhere of a 24 inch I beam that was placed in concrete in the ground, and was about 30 feet into the air. Bent so bad the top was almost touching the ground. The sound of hundreds of smoke detectors going off simultaneously for weeks kinda gives me the creeps. Only been in a couple tornadoes, not a fan of those either

Was that in '91? I remember both the McConnell hospital and school being hit back then. That F-5 took out my family home further out in Springdale Lake/Spurrier Gardens before it veered north and headed to Andover, where it narrowly missed my niece who was working at the Pizza Hut that night. Right across the street the entire little mobile home park was leveled and 14 people were killed because there were no shelters. My brother was a Butler County Deputy and had to help retrieve pieces of a man's body from what few trees were still standing. Luckily, that Pizza Hut had a small storage basement and all my niece lost was her car and sense of immortality.

Fast-forward a few years and I'm living on the west side of McConnell in the pathway that '91 twister took when we again had a twister come roaring this way, but this time the funnel lifted after doing a little damage in Oaklawn and passed over my complex and the AFB. Even so, the surface winds were strong enough to take out 60' of privacy fencing surrounding my townhouse complex and the new patio umbrella I'd bought the week before. Both tiny losses compared to what may have been!
This may have been the tornado you were talking about.

I always thought it eerie that two twisters would take nearly identical paths several years apart.

Last Edited by GSB/LTD on 03/20/2021 07:57 PM