| Storms wreak havoc in RuCo Wednesday |
|
By: MICHELLE WILLARD, mwillard@murfreesboropost.com
|
Posted: Sunday, May 1, 2011 7:53 am
|
 Email  Print
|
Wednesday’s storms felled a 100-year-old tree in the Walnut Grove on the campus of MTSU. The falling tree damaged another tree and tore up part of the walkway between the Cope Administration Building and Peck Hall. (Photo submitted.)
|
|
Rutherford County got lucky Wednesday.
As storms ripped through the Southeast, the mid-state escaped relatively unscathed, compared to the destruction wrought across Mississippi and Alabama.
“So far, we have heard of about 250 fatalities from 164 tornado reports, with many of them being across Alabama and northern Mississippi …” National Weather Service Meteorologist Bobby Boyd said Thursday afternoon. “We have not felt the intensity of such a disaster from tornadoes in at least 37 years.”
The same system produced two confirmed EF-0 tornadoes around 6 o’clock Wednesday morning, just as children were headed to school.
One tornado hit the County Park subdivision off Highway 96. It had estimated sustained winds of 75 mph, uprooted several trees and snapped others.
The second tornado touched down in Rockvale, uprooting trees with winds estimated at 75 mph.
Straight-line winds at 70 mph blew through the Haynes Drive area, uprooting trees and causing damage in an area that is still recovering from the Good Friday Tornado of 2009.
“I had eight tornadoes on the Doppler radar at the same time across North Alabama and southeast Tennessee,” Boyd said. “I think the last time I had this many and more on the radar scope at one time was back during the April 3 and 4, 1974 super outbreak that produced 55 tornadoes in Middle Tennessee and killed 46 people (in Tennessee).”
Boyd said those two tornadoes Wednesday morning may have spared us from a far worse fate.
“Those storms stabilized the environment across much of Middle Tennessee with rain-cooled air to the extent that it was difficult for storms later in the day to regenerate into severe storms and become tornadic,” Boyd said.
Even though that first line caused damage to the area, the following lines couldn’t pick up the energy they needed to cause more destruction, Boyd explained further.
“That first round of storms did a lot to stabilize the atmosphere and when that happens, it takes time for it to recover. Fortunately it never really did,” he said.
The first line also created an outflow boundary, also known as a gust front, which separates storm-cooled air from surrounding air. The outflow boundary, in essence, protected Rutherford County from stronger storms, while at the same time producing the conditions needed for stronger tornadoes to the south.
Not only did the storms bring damaging winds, it also dropped an average of 4 inches of rain in the county, with southern Rutherford County getting more than 5 inches in 24 hours.
“I’ve been in weather and meteorology professionally for 45 years and am always amazed at the strength and power of Mother Nature,” Boyd said.
Damage to property
Several hundred homes in Rutherford County and Murfreesboro received limited damage from the storms and tornadoes, according to the Rutherford County Emergency Management Agency.
Damage estimates have been tough to come by, RCEMA Assistant Director Tim Hooker said Thursday, mainly because damage was is so widespread.
“We’ve got county (building) codes out now surveying the damage,” Hooker said. “It looks like about 70 homes in the county were affected,” adding Murfreesboro City Manager Rob Lyons had told him about that same number, 70, had been affected in Murfreesboro.
Close to 218 tons of debris had been accepted Thursday by around 2 p.m., a Murfreesboro Public Works department spokesperson said.
Most of the damage was due to downed power lines and fallen trees, including a 100-year-old tree on MTSU’s campus. Most heavily damaged were the Haynes Drive, Memorial Boulevard and Cason Lane areas.
The downed power lines severed electric service to between 12,000 to 15,000 customers Wednesday morning, Murfreesboro Electric Department spokesperson Amy Byers said.
As of Thursday afternoon, all but about 300 customers in the Haynes Drive area had service restored, she added. MP |
|
Facebook
StumbleUpon
Google
Yahoo!