November 6th, 2007 By Justin Williams
The Tornado: Two Years Later
On November 6, 2005 I was still at Purdue and turned on my TV to see my town had been ransacked by a massive tornado. It was a bit surreal to say the least. My house is right in the path of the tornado so I’ve watched the reconstruction, and things are pretty much back to normal. The tornado brought about legislation like CJ’s Law which now requires weather radios to be installed in mobile homes after an entire park was obliterated by the tornado. CJ’s Law is on its way to being signed as national legislation.
Flickr users from around the area contributed photos to show the devastation. Here’s some selected ones.
photo courtesy of Jenna2794, twistedtrees, IncogNEAToEmily and carpeaqua
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Ryan
November 06, 2007 @ 10:45AM
Okay… this is going to sound harsh, but it isn’t meant to.
I moved to Evansville about a year and a half ago, so I didn’t experience this tornado. I wonder why there are the constant stories of “the tornado two years ago” and other such headlines. I’ve been around other places that have had tornados before and people seem to pick up their stuff and move on (not forget, but move on). Is there a reason that this isn’t happening here? What am I missing?
Robyn
November 06, 2007 @ 11:44AM
This is a response to Ryan’s comment.
I would say the biggest reason that we take the time to remember the November 6th tornado is because so many lives were lost. The following is an excerpt from Wikipedia.
“The tornado resulted in 25 confirmed fatalities across the region, making it by far the deadliest and most destructive tornado in the United States in 2005, and it was also the deadliest single tornado in the US since 36 died in Oklahoma on May 3, 1999. Significant tornadoes were also reported in western Kentucky.
It was the first of several significant tornado events in the month of November 2005.”
Many of the lives that were lost were children that lived in the trailer park on the Southside of Evansville. After this event, we all came together as a community to help each other out. In our way, we are moving on, but we take the time to remember those lives that were lost.
Emily
November 06, 2007 @ 04:05PM
What an eerie morning. My boyfriend and I were in bed when both of our cell phones started ringing like crazy. It was about 4 a.m. so we both ignored them thinking it was drunk dialers. Wrong. A few hours later we turned on CNN to see the destruction. It seems so long ago, but there are still reminders all over town.
hc
November 06, 2007 @ 09:36PM
Ryan, in addition to what Robyn said…this is a close-knit community and if you weren’t personally affected by the tornado than you sure knew someone who was due to the widespread damage. I think the other thing was the surprise factor. Usually you’re anticipating bad weather. However, with this tornado it was in the middle of the night in “November.” Most of us didn’t hear any alarms…no rain, no storms…it just hit.
zrx1200r
November 06, 2007 @ 11:54PM
everyone who was here has a story.
i was working 3rd shift on the west side. i knew there was a massive storm coming through when water puddles actually levitated, briefly, a few inches above ground. but i never suspected a tornado until reports came in.
i called my wife, who was still asleep.
my parents rushed to the trailer park. my mom is a nurse; dad a cop. they, along with many others, worked for hours helping.
my dad is still shaken up by some of the things that happened and won’t talk about what he saw.
Jenna
November 07, 2007 @ 10:52PM
@Ryan, absolutely horrible things happened that night. Like they said it was completely unexpected, middle of the night. People was sleeping so now news or radio to warn them. It hit so quickly that the vast majority of sirens didn’t have time to go off. One story is of a family—father, mother (who was 9 months pregnant) and their daughter who all died, the only survivor was the grandmother. Imagine that. Another young girl in her late teens lived alone with her father, her father made it, she didn’t because she was picked up and carried a mile off before dropped in the middle of a field. Little kids were found in lakes, having been picked up and dropped. Terrible things like this happen elsewhere, yes, we know.
But in this case we all at least know someone who was effected. My entire fathers side of the family lived in the path of the tornado, thank god they weren’t hit, my dad’s girlfriend lived across the street and next to a building that were both completely leveled. I was in Bloomington at the time when Justin called and told me what happened. He told me where it was and I immediately called my dad to find out about my family. I went home that weekend, I had been looking for a final project for photography, and needless to say that this unfortunately provided lots of profound pictures. One family let me onto their land which was decimated, their house had 1 wall standing. Today there is a new one there, but at the time they were entirely in shock. They only had a crawl space and they didn’t have time to fully get to it, they were in the doorway of the crawl space/stairs when it hit and had to hold on for dear life so as to not be sucked out—in which case they surely wouldn’t have made it. There was a bit of the parents bedroom left, but the sons bedroom was completely gone—just think, that boy barely made it to the crawlspace area. Only had seconds to do so.
It was a time when we probably shouldn’t have had a tornado, but we had NO warning of a tornado, and it was one of the worst. We really are a no name town but this put us on the map at the time.Not for something great, but because our town was ravaged and so many people died.It was a horrible thing and something everyone who experienced it will remember. Unfortunately, if you’d experienced it you’d understand, but luckily you didn’t.
sarah
November 27, 2007 @ 08:56PM
i was running around outside at 1:50 in the morning that day trying to wake up my friends in the adjacent appartment. i lived at hornbrook estates (just a half mile from the trailer park) and there was no warning, no sirens, nothing. i would have never known something was up but im a meteorology major so i had a feeling. but i never thought a tornado…an f3 for that matter, was ripping through my neighborhood in november. it was crazy, but i wish i could have seen it.