MARCH 19TH TORNADO

These pictures of the damage were from a tornado that struck Putnam County on March 19, 2003. These pictures were from a group of pictures that the Emergency Operations Center had on file, so unfortunately I can't give credit to the people that took these photos. The twister was classified as a strong F1. One person was killed and another injured as it passed through the northwestern part of the county.

This picture shows two things the strong winds from the tornado produced. The first thing is the yellow item sticking in the side of the house is a plastic slide from a child's swing set. The tornado's force punched it through the side of the house leaving only about 2 feet of it still visible. The second is if you notice the garage door on the right has been bulged out by the force of the tornado that had blown out the rear windows in the garage.



This is a close-up of the child's slide punched into the house.

This is a picture of what used to be a shed from the same subdivision as the above photos. The shed was originally sitting just to the right of the person taking the photograph. It was tossed on down the hillside. Some of the lighter items were blown and stuck against the fence to the right of the satellite dish. Notice the lawn tractor with its wheels in the air, it was in the shed and thrown 40 or 50 feet when the twister hit.

This is a grove of trees that the twister passed through. A sign that this is twister damage rather than straight line wind damage is the trees are snapped in half part of the way up the trunk. If it had been straight line winds, the trees would have been pushed over roots and all. It is also hard to tell from this picture, but many of the trees are laying crossed over one another. Straight winds would lay them all in the same direction.

This is a picture of a local church that was severely damaged by the tornado. You can see the roof was peeled towards the camera and the concrete block was also knocked out. The twister hit on a Thursday at around 11:00 a.m. so no one was in the building at the time.

This was a mobile home that was completely destroyed by the tornado. Tragically, one person was killed and another injured in this home. The mobile home originally stood close to where the picture was taken. You can see that the trailer was thrown 20 or 30 feet before it crashed down and was destroyed. Two small trees and the front porch were left standing untouched.

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