More Yazoo

A first-hand account of the Yazoo City tornado by Wade Rackley

On April 25, 2010, in Uncategorized, by marshallramsey

This is one of the comments from the Yazoo City tornado posts. It’s from Wade Rackley. He and his wife were getting lunch at Wendy’s on Highway 49 and rode out the storm in the bathroom .  It’s a chilling account and I am thankful he and his wife survived.
Text and photos by Wade Rackley

My wife and I were getting lunch at the Wendy’s on 49. We were watching for a tornado at the window with a view of where we believed it might appear, just in case it did. We never saw a tornado, as the thing was three quarters of a mile wide and looked like a very quickly moving, low cloud. I have never heard of a wedge-shaped tornado, so we (and all the other patrons as well as the employees) just sat and watched it come toward us.
Suddenly the rain started to “fall” horizontally, as with Katrina. We all started shouting to get to the bathrooms when the rain suddenly reversed direction and the windows all started to vibrate violently.
As we were moving to the back the power cut out and I heard a deep, thrumming sound. The air pressure dropped very quickly.
My wife got into the better shielded of the two bathrooms quickly with patrons and crew; it filled up with about 18 people, leaving myself and another gentleman alone in the dining room, unable to fit into the safer bathroom. He and I had to use the other bathroom that had a door that was not shielded at all.
Both bathroom doors were shut and latched about 10 seconds before the dining room exploded. It was amazing. Shrapnel clattered against our door for about a full minute. While the water was still spraying across the dining room I peeked out to confirm that the twister had passed over us and that things were calming down.
The scene before me was surreal.
The two of us in our bathroom went out to move the condiment bar out of the way. It was blocking our exit from the restaurant. Everything was bristling with glass; everything was covered in mud and building insulation and nastiness. The dining room bore little resemblance to where we had been eating not a few minutes prior.
I took a lot of photos, some just amazing.
No one was hurt, save for some minor cuts. Some cars were heavily damaged, one right next to my Jeep looked to be totaled.
It was a rather scary way to spend my lunch hour…

Yazoo

Apr 26 2010

Preliminary Data for Yazoo City Tornado Posted by Brian Barnes under Annoucements, News, tornado2 Comments

The preliminary data for Saturday’s tornado that hit Yazoo City, Mississippi is now available.  No doubt this thing was a monster.

Here is the breakdown of the tornado:

PATH LENGTH: 149 MILES
MAXIMUM WIDTH:  1.75 MILES
RATING: EF-4, WITH MAXIMUM WINDS OF 170 MPH
CASUALTIES: 10 TOTAL FATALITIES WITH DOZENS OF INJURIES

Our thoughts are with the families and friends of the deceased and injured.  Historically major tornadoes in the deep south usually do end with a high loss of life.  Had this tornado happened at night, these numbers would have been doubled, tripled or would have been even greater.  That being said, everyone who played a part in the warning process from The Storm Prediction Center to the NWS WFOs to broadcasters to the spotter and emergency management community should be commended for their great work Saturday – together they saved a lot of lives.

Here is the full report -

000
NOUS44 KJAN 262322
PNSJAN

PUBLIC INFORMATION STATEMENT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE JACKSON MS
620 PM CDT MON APR 26 2010

...UPDATED INFORMATION ON LONG TRACK TORNADO PATH...

NWS STORM SURVEY TEAMS FROM JACKSON AND MEMPHIS HAVE NOW
COMPLETED PRELIMINARY GROUND SURVEYS ALONG THE ENTIRE PATH
OF THE PRIMARY SUPERCELL THUNDERSTORM THAT TRACKED FROM
WEST OF TALLULAH, LOUISIANA...TO YAZOO CITY...TO NORTHEAST
OF WEST POINT...ON SATURDAY APRIL 26.

THE PRELMINARY CONCLUSION BASED ON THE GROUND SURVEYS IS
THAT A SINGLE...CONTINUOUS PATH OF TORNADIC DAMAGE WAS
PRODUCED FROM WEST OF TALLULAH TO THE EXTREME WESTERN PART
OF OKTIBBEHA COUNTY IN NORTHEAST MISSISSIPPI. THE TORNADO
APPEARED TO DISSIPATE AT THIS POINT...BUT THE STORM PRODUCED
TWO ADDITIONAL TORNADOES IN THE NWS JACKSON SERVICE AREA...
AN EF-1 IN NORTHERN OKTIBBEHA COUNTY...AND AN EF-2 IN
NORTHEAST CLAY COUNTY. INFORMATION REGARDING THESE TORNADOES
HAS BEEN PROVIDED IN EARLIER STATEMENTS.

THE MAIN LONG TRACK TORNADO WAS STRONG ALMOST FROM ITS INITIAL
STAGE OF DEVELOPMENT IN NORTHEAST LOUISIANA. EF-2 AND
EF-3 DAMAGE WAS COMMON ALL ALONG THE TORNADO'S PATH INTO
CENTRAL MISSISSIPPI...WITH TWO AREAS OF EF-4 DAMAGE IN YAZOO
AND HOLMES COUNTIES. AFTER CROSSING INTERSTATE 55...THE TORNADO
WEAKENED...WITH EF-1 AND OCCASIONAL EF-2 DAMAGE BEING COMMON
AS THE TORNADO MOVED ACROSS ATTALA COUNTY. THE TORNADO REINTENSIFIED
AS IT MOVED INTO CHOCTAW COUNTY...WITH AT LEAST HIGH END EF-3 DAMAGE
OCCURRING NORTHWEST OF THE WEIR COMMUNITY. THE TORNADO REMAINED
STRONG BEFORE RAPIDLY WEAKENING AND THEN DISSIPATING JUST AFTER
MOVING INTO OKTIBBEHA COUNTY.

HERE IS A PRELIMINARY SUMMARY OF THIS TORNADO:

BEGINNING POINT: 5 MILES W OF TALLULAH, LA 32.408N, 91.283W
AT 11:06 AM
ENDING POINT:  5.5 MILES N OF STURGIS, MS 33.430N, 89.054W
AT 1:52 PM
PATH LENGTH: 149 MILES
MAXIMUM WIDTH:  1.75 MILES
RATING: EF-4, WITH MAXIMUM WINDS OF 170 MPH
CASUALTIES: 10 TOTAL FATALITIES WITH DOZENS OF INJURIES

IT MUST BE STRESSED THAT ALL OF THIS INFORMATION IS PRELIMINARY
AND SUBJECT TO LATER ADJUSTMENT. A TORNADO OF THIS STRENGTH AND
MAGNITUDE REQUIRES A TREMENDOUS AMOUNT OF DAMAGE SURVEYS AND DATA
ANALYSIS. AN ANALYSIS OF AERIAL SURVEY INFORMATION COULD STILL
RESULT IN THE TORNADO BEING BROKEN UP INTO MORE THAN ONE PATH.

THE NWS WILL CONTINUE TO PROVIDE UPDATES AS ADDITIONAL
INFORMATION IS OBTAINED...AND IS PLANNING TO HOLD A MEDIA BRIEFING
LATER THIS WEEK TO PROVIDE A FULL ANALYSIS OF THE STORM AND THE
DAMAGE SURVEY RESULTS. ALSO...A WEBPAGE CONCERNING THIS WEATHER
EVENT...INCLUDING DAMAGE PICTURES AND MAPS...WILL BE UPDATED AT
WWW.SRH.NOAA.GOV/JAN.

THE NWS WOULD LIKE TO THANK ALL OF OUR PARTNERS IN LAW ENFORCEMENT
AND EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT FOR THEIR INVALUABLE ASSISTANCE IN
PERFORMING OUR DAMAGE SURVEYS.

$$

AEG/GRG/SCW/BK/CME/MRW/JA/DHB/DLAMB  NWS JACKSON
OKULSKI  NWS MEMPHIS

Tags: Mississippi, report, tornado, Yazoo City

Reed

  

 [image from Discovery Channel]

Reed's first official storm chase was at the age of 13, when he intercepted a severe storm in his front yard and was pelted by golf-ball size hail that destroyed his family's video camera. Ever since that day, he's been obsessed with extreme weather and storm chasing. Reed pursued this passion by studying meteorology at the University of Oklahoma. After documenting a massive F5 tornado that struck Moore, Oklahoma on May 3, 1999, Reed became even more obsessed with extreme storm chasing. Since then, he has driven over 50,000 miles every year from the Mexican Border to Canada, and has captured over 200 tornadoes on film. In addition to storm chasing year-round, Reed is currently working toward a PhD in meteorology at the University of Oklahoma. In 2003, Reed started TornadoVideos.net, a company devoted to extreme storm chasing footage and research.

During the first season of Storm Chasers, a 300 pound TVN tornado probe was successfully deployed the in the path of a fast-moving twister in Kansas, and captured High Definition video from inside the circulation. During the off-season, Reed took his mission to the next level, and developed an armored research vehicle, the TVN Dominator. Outfitted with a mobile radar, the vehicle was designed to measure vertical winds at the base of tornados. This year, Reed has improved The Dominator by adding military-grade Rhino lining to the exterior, and upgrading to half-inch polycarbonate Lexan windows. The shape of the vehicle has also been altered for superior aerodynamics. Enhanced mobile radar and new probe-launching tornado canons will boost the team's research capabilities. The team is equipped to handle extreme conditions better than ever before.

Matt Hughes

Another tragic story to report.  Another life lost, far too early. Discovery Channel’s Matt Hughes from the thrilling show, Storm Chasers died on May 26.  His death wasn’t made public or with honesty for what we can assume was for the privacy of the family, while they grieved his suicide.

The network had this to say about Matt,

[he was] “a featured meteorologist on Storm Chasers passed away on May 26th, 2010 in Wichita, Kansas due to an injury unrelated to his chasing activities. Sean, Reed, Tim and everyone involved in Storm Chasers mourn the loss of their friend and colleague.” Last night’s episode featured “Matt’s incredible last chase, and is dedicated to his memory.”

TMZ reported on the actual suicide,

[police] “responded to a suicide call at Hughes’ home. According to the police report, officers concluded Matt, who was still breathing, was drinking before the suicide attempt,” and while he was hospitalized, he died “13 days later. The Medical Examiner’s report lists ‘Hanging’ as the cause of death.”

The bottom line is that Matt was suffering from severe depression, got drunk, hung himself, but it didn’t kill him.  His injuries were too severe and he couldn’t be saved.

Very, very sad.  Our thoughts and prayers are with Matt Hughes family and friends as they continue to mourn their loss.

R.I.P. Matt Hughes

[image Discovery]