Tornados Hit Near our House.

Yesterday was pretty wild here in Northern Colorado, USA. There were seven to eight tornado touchdowns here across a wide area covering at least two counties including the one we live in and the one where my wife works. This amazing video (click here) shows the biggest tornado crossing the major highway that my wife travels everyday to work but thankfully she was at work when it crossed. She did have to take shelter in the basement of their building for about 30 minutes though.

The video below will show you some pictures and footage of the damage from that main tornado slamming into the town of Windsor which was the town hit the hardest. It was a monster tornado that was about a mile in diameter and categorized as an F3 on the Fujita scale (about 150mph or 241kph):

Windsor is only about 15-20 miles from where we live (I can drive to it in about 10 minutes). Yesterday I was over at my parent's house spending time with my Dad. We usually get together once a week to go to lunch and watch some movies. Well we were listening to the radio and were told to take cover so we went into our basement and waited out the warning. It turns out that a tornado touched down just north of their house in our city. It hit only about 10 miles away from their house where we were hunkered down but the damage was thankfully minimal with that particular tornado.

It turns out that one person died but it could have been worse as there was a day care that was destroyed. There were 150 children there but they had been evacuated in time and were sheltered in a bank vault across the street. The storm could have been so much worse in terms of loss of life but the property damage is extensive and many are without homes. There are many places with wooden boards strewn about like toothpicks. This is what my wife saw coming home from work:

When I left, I had no idea where the tornado hit in the town where I work, and I happened to go a different way home because I needed to stop somewhere, and I drove right through the path of the tornado. Crazy--power line after power line was down on farmland, and looking ahead, all the trees were "leaning" in the same direction. As I got closer I found that all the trees were actually broken in that direction. I drove by a small area of buildings that were torn apart--it looked like there were some trailer homes. Turns out I drove right by where the fatality was.

So all in all it was quite a lively day around here but everyone I know are fine but many are injured and their houses wiped out. I hope that they can find some comfort and peace. I also hope that they can rebuild their homes without much trouble and cost.

Posted in: colorado,damage,fujita scale,tornados,video,windsor