Electric Fishwrap

Check out this amazing multimedia presentation by the Des Moines Register.

Two weeks ago an EF-5 tornado, the biggest possible on the Enhanced Fujita Scale, ripped through the southern half of Parkersburg, Iowa. Like most communities after tragedy, the town pulled together. Neighbors searched for each other among the wreckage. People pitched in together and cleaned up the roads. So far, eight people have died from their injuries.

The Register’s multimedia presentation merges an attractive flash interface with user-submitted stories, photographer-shot video and it combines before images from the county assessor database with images photographers took after the storm.

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First off, I am very relieved that my former colleagues at the Loveland Reporter-Herald in Colorado are safe. A half-mile-wide wedge tornado bore down on the town of Windsor, Colo. Thursday morning and carved a wide swath of damage. Only one person was killed and it’s a miracle more were not taken. I believe this is a testament to the strength of our early warning systems and to the construction quality of our buildings.

Stormtrack storm chasers (here and here) had been watching the supercell (posts include technical jargon, also with great pics of radar with the hook echo visible), which had a rare northwest track, since it formed. It put on quite a show, gouging a path through Windsor and then headed toward Fort Collins.

Loveland was also under tornado warning for some time, and staff at the Reporter-Herald huddled in the downstairs hallway for about 15-20 minutes. (Guys, I hate to say it, but if that tornado was anything above an EF-3 that hallway isn’t going to cut it.)

—EDIT: Adding info from Jeff Masters’ Wunderblog. Masters says the damage appeared to be at least EF-3. Check out the great pictures and explanations of the hook echo on his site (animation of reflectivity here).—

Based on the damage from aerial shots from the Rocky Mountain News, Windsor has a long road to recovery ahead of them.

Some incredible video from KUSA is posted on the CNN site. Halfway through the video you can see egg-sized hail pelting the reporter, who is on an overpass of US 34 west of Greeley (I think?). Check out the other videos on that page as well. Just watching the video gives me chills and makes me thankful that Loveland didn’t sustain a direct hit from this monster.

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Here’s the link to a story I wrote about the Burlington-Edison High School leadership club that went to visit the flood damage in Chehalis for themselves. I really had fun writing this. The audio I really had to throw together fast because only one person at the company currently has the ability to convert files from one format to another (that will soon change).

First off it’s always great to go and see the students doing stuff instead of phone interviews. I’ve always believed you get more out of seeing things in the classrooms and observing.

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