A mile wide and seventeen miles long...

[kentuck]

Imagine an area 1 mile from where you are sitting. That was how wide the tornado was as it traveled 17 miles on the ground with winds up to 200 miles per hour. It is impossible to imagine the horror and destruction unless one was in the middle of it.

It is a miracle that many more lives were not lost as the winds leveled everything in its path. How many houses are in a square mile from where you live? How far down the road do you have to go to reach 17 miles? It was truly a monster storm.

[HereSince1628]

1. Imagine it digging a trench 500-800 ft deep...that size catastrophe is planned for WI

under a mining bill that exempts the Chinese management company from environmental damage lawsuits.

[HereSince1628]

5. Glad I threw you some raw-hamburger.

[kentuck]

3. Then imagine...

cutting the entire tops off mountains to get to a seam of coal and then have all the excess rains flood the valleys because the mountains cannot naturally absorb it...

[HereSince1628]

4. True.

[liberal N proud]

12. We seem to be able to talk about destruction from natural disasters but not so much with human...

destruction.

The media seems to miss the fact that what they are doing to the environment both on former mountain tops and new holes in the ground is escalating the destruction from nature.

[magical thyme]

7. the winds were over 200, per the degree of damage

that's why it was upgraded to EF5 yesterday.

[txwhitedove]

8. Part of that miracle was great meteorologists, sirens, tornado drills, and knowing to shelter in

place as best you can whether basement, hallway or best is bathroom with a mattress. Must have helped since over 20,000 survived a massive tornado that flattened everything.

[CBGLuthier]

10. Yes, thank you for saying it

We do the best we can with what we got but one thing we do have going for us is world-class meteorolgists and all the tv stations have equipment for storm tracking that is the best in the world.

Pretty good for a bunch of "neanderthals" as one DUer puts it.

[godai]

9. Horrible storm but not always a mile wide.

I've heard this mentioned many times, even 2 miles wide, which was explained by a debris cloud outside the tornado. The videos of the tornado don't appear to be a mile wide. I saw a helicopter video of a neighborhood where the destruction was 4-5 houses wide. Houses on either side beyond that had roofs. Probably the tornado changed in size as it moved forward. Was it a mile wide sometimes? Maybe but I hope not.

Seventeen miles long by a mile wide would be unbelievable destruction but, as bad as it was, it probably wasn't that widespread. I could be wrong.

[kentuck]

11. I heard a reporter say...

that it was over a mile wide on average. The most severe winds appeared to be a few blocks wide. The photos were of the most severe damage and destruction, I suppose. Either way, a monster of a storm.

[RC]

13. It's not the high winds so much as the low pressure in the middle that just explodes buildings.

That is where the "Open your windows during a tornado" came from. The problem with that is, it allows the high winds into your house, ripping it apart, from the inside out. You are better off leaving the windows closed.

A curious fact. Building with hip roofs withstand high winds and tornadoes better than buildings with standard roofs.