Monday, March 5, 2012

Tornado, West Union, Ohio

Last Friday, not long before setting out on the salamander foray described in the previous post, a powerful tornado barreled right through the county seat of Adams County - West Union. I was staying at Murphin Ridge Inn, six miles NNE of this twister. It felt like a pack of locomotives was flying overhead during the peak of the event, and after seeing the following video I better understand why.

This video was lifted from a security camera in downtown West Union, and the parking lot looks like the one on the west side of the courthouse to me. The power of this tornado is awesome, and scary.

8 comments:

Andrew Lane Gibson said...

Wow, Jim! Very happy to hear you managed to avoid the worst of it. I was planning on spending the day down in Adams county but chose against it once I saw the weather. We own property just a few miles SE of West Union. I'm headed down later this week to survey any potential damage. I'm hoping being down in the Ohio Brush Creek valley will have curbed the worst of the wind!

Jim McCormac said...

Hopefully all is well with your property, Andrew. The TNC barn, across from their old offices, apparently got flattened.

Robin M said...

How frightening for that person in that car that had just pulled in! I hope they were ok.

Julie Zickefoose said...

Oh, I trust Darryl and Sherry were OK at Murphin Ridge?? I was there, ironically, for a lightning strike right in their parking lot--scared the bejaysus out of us. Sorry to hear that there was a close brush at TNC. This is an amazing video. I can only imagine what the people in that SUV were going through with all that debris flying at them...YIKES.

Jim McCormac said...

To the "anonymous" threatening doofus who doesn't believe this video is what it is - here is the title/description from YouTube:

"West Union, Ohio EF2 Tornado on March 2nd 2012. A Security Camera in a shopping plaza shows footage a small narrow intense tornado head through on March 2nd."

If you want to be rude and hostile, fine - just put your name with the post, and I'll publish it.

Jim McCormac said...

Darryl and Sherrie and the inn soldiered through just fine, Jules. Even though the power went out, they still served a spectacular dinner by candlelight. Amazing people running an incredible place, AND your book is in every room!

Tom said...

Well, at the risk pf being called a "doofus" myself, I'll say this:

I've spent a reasonable amount of time in West Union and, just now, a reasonable amount of time on Google Maps to check my memory.

I can say with absolute certainty that it isn't near the courthouse. All of the parking for the courthouse is on the street and there is no brick building that looks similar to the one in the video near the court house.

It could well have been in West Union, but I cannot identify where, exactly. There doesn't seem to be any parking lot that looks exactly like that in town.

Jim McCormac said...

Thanks for your comment, Tom. Don't worry, I'm not in the habit of branding people as doofuses. But you might have thought the same had you seen those comments.

Not sure what the issue with the video is. There's no doubt that tornadoes and explosive winds hit that area on March 2. I was there. I don't know of any reason that video would be misrepresented or faked in some way.