On August 11, 1999 I was relaxing on the front porch, about to get ready for work. Looking west, I could see some dark ominous clouds coming our way. At first I joked about it being a twister, but didn't know it really was an F-2 tornado racing through downtown. I could see massive amounts of wood, branches and other debris flying through the air. My roommate Kurt and I watched as the raging wind ripped out the large evergreen tree in our front yard. I immediately ran to make sure our rickety garage withstood the gusts. (Thankfully it did.) As I was monitoring it from the back windows, Kurt actually witnessed the funnel cloud move through Memory Grove Park. Damage to our house was fairly minimal, a huge piece of lumber blew into and shattered an upstairs window. In the Avenues district, 120 homes were severely damaged and had roofs blown off and 34 homes were completely destroyed. Over 100 people reported injured and a dozen critically. One man lost his life. It was a wild and crazy day for sure. One I will soon not forget... even ten years later.
The pink star indicates where I was living when the tornado hit. I watched it blow in from our front porch.
The yellow star is the hotel where I work.
A long metal pole pierced through a van parked in our back alley.
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A few more of my snapshots from
Memory Grove Park *
*from my actual camera, not from flickr.
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