Tornadoes kill 39 Friday
Devastation — Remains of a Russell County mobile home after an EF-2 twister. Photo credit: Derek Aaron, Times Journal
A series of twisters throughout the Midwest and South claimed the lives of 39 people.
More than 300 tornado warnings plagued the Midwest Friday, March 3, according to the National Weather Service. The tornadoes spanned a total of 100,000 square miles and touched down in 10 states.
The twisters spread from the Gulf Coast to the Great Lakes and endangered 34 million people, the National Weather Service said.
At one point, more than four million people were within 25 miles of a tornado.
Funnel — A funnel cloud forms over Russell Springs, Ky. around 5 p.m. March 2. Photo credit: Derek Aaron, Times Journal
One tornado, which hit down in Henryville, Ind., was ranked by the National Weather Service as an EF-4, hitting 175 mph. The Enhanced Fujita scale — the scale meteorologists use to measure tornado severity, which was updated Feb. 1, 2007 — ranks twisters from EF-1 to EF-5. EF-1 means the tornado reached 86 to 110 mph wind gusts, while EF-5 equals winds exceeding 200 mph.
Colene Wade, who lives in Russell County, Ky., said that she spent most of the day listening to the storms outside.
“The wind blew so hard and sirens went off all day,” Wade said.
Tornadoes hammered Wade’s county twice last week, including a Leap Day outbreak that spawned nine twisters. A 125-mph tornado hit Kentucky in that storm. More than 13 people were killed across the Midwest on Wednesday, Feb. 29, alone.
“After Wednesday, this just wore me out,” Wade said.
Andrea King, a Liberty University student from Harrogate, Tenn., had to rush home Friday night after the storms struck to make sure her family was okay. What she found, she said, was a disaster.
“It’s really devastating because you don’t think it’s going to happen to your town until it does,” King said.
According to King, no one from her small town was killed, but there were several injuries.