Coverage of Monday’s tornadoes in Hampton Roads
I’m out sick today. Aching muscles and joints; very tired. I hope I’m not coming down with the flu. Diabetics have trouble with the flu.
And what’s worse: I’m getting no sympathy at all from my wife — who’s also at home today, sicker than I am. At least I can get around a little. She’s still in bed, not feeling well at all.
Despite the fact my brain was AWOL Monday, I got far enough ahead on my ongoing city budgets project that the Pilot can possibly spare me a day. I’ll post more about that later, perhaps.
Just as I was preparing to go home early, reports came in of a possible tornado in Suffolk, southwest of Norfolk. I felt really guilty about leaving only one artist in the department to handle whatever resulted from the storm. John Earle and our boss, design director Paul Nelson, assured me they could deal with it. Especially since I was fading pretty fast, at that point.
So I staggered out to my car, hopped on the interstate and… ran smack into a wall of rain. Which, naturally, brought traffic to a standstill. It took me 90 minutes to get to my home in Virginia Beach — about double what it normally takes.
When I finally got home, I discovered that the storm cell — the same one I had just driven through — sure enough did generate a tornado. In fact, it destroyed a nice neighborhood in Suffolk, trashed a shopping center and injured 200 patients in a hospital. No fatalities though, thank God.
In retrospect, a PT Cruiser was probably not the best place in which to ride out a storm like that.
I’ve not yet walked downstairs to pick up today’s Pilot to see how we covered it. So we resort to The Newseum…
Looks like my buddy John Earle got along fine without me last night, after all. The map locates alls the severe damage on the north side of Suffolk, along the bypass.
The funnel reportedly traveled northeast, skipped across the Elizabeth River and made landfall among the piers at the enormous Navy base just north of Norfolk — the home of the entire Atlantic Fleet. But the tornado had lost enough force by that time that it caused damage to neither base nor ships.
I also like the tiny shot, in the upper left, of the twister itself. That’s from a local TV station. More about stormchasing in a moment…
Here’s how Link covered it today:
I’m guessing a lot of folks are appreciating our web coverage. Our web site, Pilotonline.com, is running very, very slowly this morning.
Among the things we have there is the obligatory photo gallery. I’m happy to see the incredibly talented Steve Early was on the scene Monday.
Here’s a 16-year-old resident, leaping over debris in the Burnett’s Mill section of Suffolk:
Here are cars that have been tossed around like Hot Wheels in a shopping center, across the street from Obici Hospital:
The hospital itself wasn’t struck directly. But 200 people were injured by debris and glass when the windows blew out, officials said.
One more picture: The Pilot’s Delores Johnson snapped this one of a Suffolk mother, strolling with her baby in the aftermath of the storm:
Again, you can find all this — and much more — at the Pilot’s web site.
The most extraordinary thing there today, however, is this: Video of the tornado on the ground, shot at 4:32 p.m. Monday by Portsmouth-based stormchaser Jesse Bass III:
Now there’s something you don’t see every day. Here’s a direct link to the video.
If you have a tornado — or other nasty weather — rake across your area, you can find the latest raw reports, as they stream in to the National Weather Service computers, via the Storm Prediction Center. Click on “reports” and choose the time frame you want:
Blue dots indicate wind damage. Green are hail reports. Red are tornadoes.
When the NWS receives a report of a sighting or damage, the report goes into their database. Which then generates listings for the map and for the text listings that appear below the map:
Whenever you have storms passing through your area, pull up the SPC site and update the page constantly. It’s the quickest way to follow the reports as area police and other officials pick their way through the aftermath.
OK, that’s it. I’ve been awake for about an hour. Time for a nap.
