An unwarned, quickly moving tornado touched down in a matter of minutes late Sunday night, leaving the Downtown and Courthouse blocks with extensive damage, and destroying the old Veterans Memorial Mural building. Our Sam Camp was in the skies and on the ground with aerial views ground views of the damage path through the downtown corridor where the majority of the damage occurred.
Among the first locations of significant damage is the CEI Christian bookstore a block south of the Courthouse, which lost it’s entire roof. Around this area, several power poles were also snapped, and several large trees were also completely toppled.
Incidentally, tree damage is a useful indicator as to whether or not damage was tornadic or from straight line winds, and aided the determination here, too – surveyors can analyze the orientation of the treefall and this is a useful diagnostic for whether or not it was rotating or in one direction only.
On the Downtown square, several shops and locations adjacent to the Courthouse lost portions of their rooves, spreading their debris across the block and into the entryway of the courthouse doors. Sadly, the old Oak tree on the Courthouse block was also toppled – this tree was one of the last ones remaining on it’s side of the block following intense storms in February of 2020, and was more than 100 years old. Across the block, powerlines were also thrown onto the street, leaving most of the area without power for some time, but by the morning, restoration efforts were ongoing.
A few blocks further Northeast, the Veterans Museum suffered heavy damage as well, with the old building featuring the large mural honoring Veterans being destroyed. The display Helicopter at the Museum was also strewn across the street, and landed in a nearby homes driveway. The tornado continued north, knocking down several more trees and some powerlines before lifting. In many ways, this was a worst case scenario – as mentioned before, no tornado warning was issued in the moments prior to the tornado. Unfortunately, analysis of the publicly accessible NEXRAD data offered at the time of the event showed no major indications of tornadic activity, with a nearby research radar only revealing the signature in the aftermath. Fortunately, no injuries have been reported in the wake of this tornado.
