Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.
Re: Deadly Tornado Hits Salt Lake
Author: Jacob Savin Posted: 8/12/1999; 12:27:02 PM Topic: Today's scriptingNews Outline Msg #: 9421 (In response to 9387) Prev/Next: 9420 / 9422
The girlfriend of a co-worker of mine was at the convention that was hit by the tornado. She had gone out to get something to eat, and the lights had gone out at the restaurant she was in. She didn't think anything of it until she returned to see the whole place in shambles.Having grown up in Knsas City, I've seen a little bit of tornado damage, but I never witnessed a tornado in person, though I always wanted to. I think they're fascinating, as long as one has the opportunity to get out of the way.
When I was in gradeschool, I was on a YMCA soccer team. We had a game one sunday at some fields about 20 miles south-west of the city. I remember vividly, the damage done there by a tornado which had hit the night before. The first sign was on the freeway- there are light-poles lining the freeway about 50 feet high, and 75 yards or so apart, and at the exit we took to go to the fields, the top foot or so of one of the light-poles was bent about 15 degrees to one side. As we drove towards the fields, the scene became more and more surreal. The next thing we saw was a gas station minus roof, with a VW beetle parked beside it. The beetle's hood had been ripped open, and bent backwords towards the windshield. 'OK,' I'm thinking, 'what's the big deal?'... (Naive, huh?) Then we saw a 2-ton Ford van lodged in the branches of a large oak tree. Things were getting weirder. When we arrived at the soccer fields, we saw the most impressive damage. The Y had just put in new scoreboards. They were mounted on 5-inch steel I-beams, six of them in a row, and one to the side on the seventh field which was perpinduclar to the others. There were groves of trees on either side of the fields, presumably planted to make a wind-break. Each of the wind-breaks had a gap about 35 feet wide, where the trees were just plain missing- not torn up or knocked down, not splintered or without leaves, just missing. That was how we knew how big (or rather small) the tornado had been... It had come through the trees on the west side of the field, and then proceeded to knock down the entire row of scoreboards, twisting the I-beams around into knots, like pretzel dough. At the east end of the field, it had removed more trees, and then left the ground. I suppose that as it got weaker, it dropped the van in the tree, but even still it was strong enough to take the roof off of the gas station, and rip open the hood of the VW. By the time it got to the freeway, it just nicked the top of the light-pole, bending it slightly... If that's what a small tornado does, I have a very hard time imagining what a half-mile-wide one would do... But even still, I'd love to witness one...
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