Well, that was fun......NOT. Got home from work before the storms hit. Work called and told me to make sure my truck was fueled just in case I had to go out and help with damage. On the way back home, there was a tornado right above my house (okay...it looked like it was right over the house and I guess that would make it a funnel cloud). Anyway, we've seemed to survive round one okay. Not so lucky on the south side. Sounds like one of our malls was taken out...emergency vehicles are still working the area. Weather man says he hasn't seen so much tornadic (yeah, that's the word he used) activity in this area for the 18 years he's been here. TB, Jackson is getting hit hard right now and you're in the line. Don't take this one lightly....when it's time, get in a shelter and good luck.

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Don
NAR 53455
"Carpe Diem"

It came right over the area but it weakened a bit before we got it. Union University had a dorm room roof collapse with some kids trapped. Unbelieveably, we only had a few trees down and some power outages. The cell is still together, but it's much weaker looking as it moves out of the area. I expected to at least get called out to clear roads, but it weakened enough after moving through Jackson that we didn't get paged out. We still have the squall line to deal with which could produce tornadoes too, but that won't hit for a few hours.

I'm glad you guys are ok. I saw the channel 3 footage of a funnel cloud out of that same cell that hit Jackson and came through here. Since I'm a weather spotter, I stayed outside, but got nothing more than lots of beautiful lightning. The path of the hail was a bit to the southeast of me. Nobody in the county got over golfball size this round, but the majority of the county was reporting pea size at various times. Within a few minutes I was seeing stars between the bits of clouds. It was a beautiful sight.

We took our hit when I got home this morning. The window to my computer room is under an outcropping from our master bath. I was able to open the window and watch nature's fury play hell with our back yard. We had a large limb that fell in one of our trees late last summer and it wedged itself in the lower branches pretty well. I never quite figured out how to get it down, but I knew I'd eventually have to figure out something. Too much of a safety hazard. Well, this morning's storm took care of it for me. Now I just have to go out and haul it to the woodpile when things dry up.

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Bill Eichelberger
NAR 79563

http://wallyum.blogspot.com/

I miss being SAM 0058

Build floor: Centuri Mini Dactyl Estes - Low Boom SST Semroc - Marauder, Shrike, SST Shuttle

In paint: Canaroc Starfighter Scorpion Estes F-22 Air Superiority Fighter, Multi-Roc, Solar Sailer II Semroc Cyber III

Ready to fly: Estes - Solar Sailer II Semroc - Earmark, Groonie Der V 1/2

Don, Zep, Bill glad you guys came out OK. Things were pretty ugly for a while around here. I drove through the storm that damaged this warehouse about 2 minutes after the storm had hit it. This is not my pic, and was obiviously taken afterward. The other pic of the hail stone is about the size of hail that was falling while I was driving. Funny thing is, the radio was warning people to get out of their cars and get into a ditch. I wasn't about to get out of the truck with hail that size falling; and the ditches all had about 4 feet of water in them.

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Dave
Fire is the leading cause of fire.
Was once SAM#0132

Glad you made it through okay. Your area seems to have gotten the brunt of it. I could never understand that get into the ditch thing either because they are usually flowing with water. I guess you can take a deep breath right before it gets to you. Then again, I heard on the news this morning that one man died because his car was flipped a couple of times with him still inside.

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Don
NAR 53455
"Carpe Diem"

We're lucky. Last I heard for TN was 26 deaths and injuries in the hundreds.

It seems that the trailer parks were the safe places to be in TN this time around. We had malls, warehouses, regular homes, fire stations, and college dormitories take direct hits, but not much has been mentioned about trailers this time.

I guess that Super Tuesday was no so super for many of you in the South and the southern Midwest. We were hearing about storm updates all evening, and I was thinking of all of you. I went through several bad storms like that when I lived in Western Mich, and I still remember them vividly. I have lived through hurricanes, Nor'easters, ice storms, heavy multiday blizzards, etc., but nothing ever matches the sudden random violence and destruction of a tornado front. Really scary stuff. When you are huddled in the basement after getting a tornado warning, it's like Russian roulette, and all you can do is hope and pray that this will not be the time when you get the bullet. My thoughts and prayers are with all of you, your friends and your neighbors in the storm-affected areas.

Some of that storm system worked its way into my area in the Northeast late last night, and it is expected to stick around until tomorrow. We are getting heavy snow, accompanied by the occasional rumble of thunder. Lightning and thunder are rare, but not unheard of, during blizzards. When they do occur, it tends to be in Autumn and Spring blizzards. We are not seeing any high winds, at least not so far. We had an ice storm the other day, during the warm spell, but nothing like the one we got 10 years ago. The heavy snow on top of the ice is a bit of a problem, but only until it gets cleared away; we can deal with it.

Mark

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SAM # 0011

Hopefully none of the members here got hurt in any of the storms.

We have purpose-built unoccupied trailer parks up here in Michigan just so the tornadoes have something to target !

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When in doubt, WHACK the GAS and DITCH the brake !!!

Yes, there is such a thing as NORMAL, if you have to ask what is "NORMAL" , you probably aren't !
Failure may not be an OPTION, but it is ALWAYS a POSSIBILITY.
ALL systems are GO for MAYHEM, CHAOS, and HAVOC !

Twister-bait! I like it!

Mark

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SAM # 0011