Jackson, Tennessee "UNBELIEVABLE DAMAGE"

NWS ^ | 06/04/03

[Lucas1]

*** 1 DEAD *** ONE FATALITY

CONFIRMED IN A SUBDIVISION THAT SUFFERED UNBELIEVABLE DAMAGE. REPORTED BY MADISON COUNTY EMA. (MEM)

Violent tornado apparently has tore through Jackson, Tennessee.

[archy]

Tornado touchdown at elementary school.
National Weather Service

PRELIMINARY LOCAL STORM REPORT NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE
NASHVILLE TN..CORRECTED FOR TIME 0230 PM CDT MON MAY 05 2003

TIME(CDT) .....CITY LOCATION.....STATE ...EVENT/REMARKS... ....COUNTY LOCATION....

1425 PM KINGSTON SPRINGS TN FX TORNADO 05/05/03 CHEATHAM TORNADO TORNADO TOUCHDOWN AT KINGSTON SPRINGS ELEMENTARY.

Additional info in FReeppost and response thread posted by FReeper dennis1x on 05/05/2003 1:40 PM MDT *here*.

[sweetliberty]

Actually, I remember seeing a program on TLC or Discovery a couple of years back featuring Brits who made a vacation of coming here to follow the storm chasers because they didn't have such opportunities in their country. That was my understanding anyway.

Perhaps you could address this issue Ivan.

[wardaddy]

More on UK tornados from another link.

[Yes!. On average the UK might see up to 33 reported damaging tornadoes every year. Some years the total can be far lower or much higher than this. For example in 1982 there were 150 tornadoes.This may seem very low when compared to figures from the United States, however we must not forget that the USA is 39 times larger than the UK. Because of this difference in size, we must consider land area. It was recognized by the American Scientist Dr. Ted Fujita (who devised the F-Scale) that the UK has more tornadoes per unit area than any other country in the world. ]

http://www.severewx.co.uk/tnfaq.htm

Sure suprised me as well when I first saw this a few years ago.

[wardaddy]

I telling ya man....I have been home all day while Mrs. Wardaddy went shopping and I have heard thunder and seen lightning all day. We have been getting Tornado warnings off and on all day.

It's very rare for it to keep it up like this for so long....about 18 hours so far. My cats are huddled up and have no desire to go outside and kill stuff. Our dobie at my mother's house is rattled...storms like this turn him from T-Rex to a trembling pussycat.

Again, I'm glad to be up in the hills though i relaize that is not cure-all.

Last year a tornado hit a valley over near the Smokies and killed a number of folks....just swooped in over a mountain and raked the valley and lifted off and moved on.

When the sky gets real low and purple and you start getting that flourescent lime green light darting about thru the clouds and then hail and yer ears start popping....you better take cover.

[archy]

The ones around here last night were apparently pretty bad.

Martin, TN has been socked pretty good, as per the following pictures, though I'm not sure if the damage there was from last night, today, or a bit of both.

-archy-/-

[wardaddy]

Damn...I drive thru Martin on my yearly pilgrimage to Dixie Gun Works in Union City.

This series of storms will be remembered.

[Travis McGee]

Do your kids get nightmares, "combat fatigue", PTSD, etc from the constant fear, thunder, lightning, TV images etc?

[Joe Hadenuf]

*** 1 DEAD *** ONE FATALITY

Is there a difference?

Technically, a victim who is dead is one who has been certified as such by a physician or coroner, or other person qualified by state law to make a pronouncement of death, the legal requirements of which vary from state to state. A fatality may not yet be expired, but may be a person so irretrievably injured that there is no doubt that they are expired or will be, as, for example, those trapped underground in mines during collapses, caveins or earthquakes, but whose bodies could not be accessed for a legal determination of death.

Huh?

[wardaddy]

My 14 year old daughter is old enough to remember going thru Andrew in Miami when they had to get under the stairs and cover with a mattress as all the windows got blown out and whatnot. She has also seen a tornado at distance down here with me and the destruction afterwards. She is definitely spooked. Phobic.

When she is here she makes me plug in the instant warning NOAA radio that comes on when there is a warning...for her room.

I was in Camille as a 12 year old and around plenty of tornados (but never a direct hit) and I'm not that spooked by it but I do feel very vulnerable when I have a bunch of wee ones and a wife in my care at my home..granted. If I lived in a farmhouse on in a broad plain in tornado alley, I'd have someplace to hide.

My dad was in one as a boy and it blew the roof off their dogtrot and left the biscuits in place on top of the stove one morning.

[wardaddy]

Btw...now I'm getting spooked...all this talk about feeling secure on my hillside makes me nervous...one'll probably come along tonight and smack me right off of here..lol

The big fear here are huge oaks and hickorys behind my house on a sharp grade getting blown over and falling on my house...fortuantely, we're all downstairs except when the girls are here....I hope that second story helps...lol...if Hannah had been here last night, she would have had to have been sedated.

A neighbor of mine last night 3 doors down had a tree blown over and took out his power. That was the only damage last night on my street.

At my mom's in Murfreesboro about 25 miles SE of here, they had some serious damage and hail on the ground several inches deep.

[SuziQ]

Right now ther is a massive hailstorm in Olive Branch, MS, just across the state line

YIKES! My nephew, his wife and their new baby live there!

[thunders]

Eh, the people that 'they' get to be storm trackers are the ones who really love the intensity and are there because they like it--they wouldn't be there if they didn't!

At one point during my teenage years, I thought it would be very fun to be a storm tracker...now I'm still enthralled by the severe thunderstorms we get across the OK area, but I'm content just to watch them from a safer point of veiw...

[Travis McGee]

Makes you look at your magnificent old shade trees next to your house in an entirely different way.

[wardaddy]

yes...potential homicidal maniacs...given the right nudge.

[Maigrey]

This is from the afternoon update on the (Memphis) Commercial Appeal.

Boy sucked from mother's arms; father, son missing
By WOODY BAIRD
Associated Press Writer
May 5, 2003

DENMARK, Tenn. - Rhonda McLaughlin was holding her 7-year-old son Lee in her arms when a tornado hit their home, ripping him away and even pulling a ring off her hand.

The tornado that swept through this small community about 12 miles southwest of Jackson on Sunday night left a swath of destruction that included downed trees, overturned cars and demolished homes.

The storm caused at least 13 deaths across the state, authorities said, including 10 in Jackson and Madison County. Lee McLaughlin was among the dead, while his grandfather, Larry Kiddy, was in intensive care.

Rescue workers also found a woman's body in a lake a mile away Monday afternoon but continued searching for a man and his son.

Anita Rhodes said her sister-in-law was holding onto Lee McLaughlin as tight as she could in their doublewide mobile home.

"She doesn't know how he got loose," Rhodes said.

Rhodes was helping her brother, Tom McLaughlin, search through the rubble of his home for his wife's ring on Monday. McLaughlin had been returning home from Nashville when the tornado hit.

"She never took it off but it wasn't on her hand this morning," Rhodes said of the ring.

Rhonda McLaughlin and her sons tried to ride out the storm, with her youngest child wrapped in her arms as her teenage son, T.J., held onto her. As the mobile home was torn apart, winds separated them.

After the tornado, T.J. McLaughlin pulled his mother out of the rubble, placed her inside a car and covered her with a blanket. He then found his grandfather in the debris of what had been his home and covered him with a tarp until help arrived.

"He's in intensive care, and my young son is dead," Tom McLaughlin said before breaking down.

Rescue workers found the body of a woman under debris in a five-acre lake, according to Trooper Roger Cathey. She had lived in a doublewide mobile home nearby with a man and his son. All that remained of the trailer was the concrete slab.

The man and the boy remained missing, so workers knocked a hole in a levee to drain the lake.

"It'll take a day or two for the lake to drain," said Ed Apple of the Shelby County Sheriff's Department's rescue team, searching with his yellow Labrador Gus.

[PhiKapMom]

One of the guys in my son's fraternity was a storm tracker when he first pledged the fraternity. Still is after he graduated. Must admit it is neat to watch the coverage from the storm trackers and they save countless lives whenever there is an outbreak of tornadoes!

Kind of neat to have the Storms Prediction Center here in Norman with all the latest technology!

[Old Professer]

LOL, it'll probably take a week to round-up those drunken pigs.

Seriously, I live in Nashville and we were without power for 12 hours today; went out and bought a 5" battery-powered T.V. and five minutes after we had it set up the power came back on -- so far, so good.

[Old Professer]

Just make sure that you install a mechanical-advantage system for egress.

[Old Professer]

Are you sure You're not in Lynchburg?

[ALS]

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