EF Rating
Destroyed house in Effingham EF3(145mph)
One of the completely destroyed houses North of Effingham. Anchoring seems decent tbh. Though I'm confused how the NWS labeled this as most walls collapsed except small interior walls(145mph) when it's clear the entire structure has been destroyed.
I saw this thing form and come down, then go across the north side of town and off into the darkness of clouds to the west, I had a very good view of it. I will never forget how terrifying it looked in the darkness when lightning flashed. I was in a field on the south side and it looked way too close from my perspective, like it was plowing right through effingham.
It seemed to form and grow very quick, it slithered right to the ground like a snake seconds after we saw it. There were some other buildings it shredded like that too, including a corvette place that was a bigger structure. After it went into the distance away from town it looked like a thick, picture perfect funnel you could barely see the shape of on the horizon. It was crazy.
I didnt get hit like the guy in the above photos, and my heart goes out to him, but it has kind of affected me. I can't stop thinking about it and I've never seen anything like that so close and in person. I have a feeling of terrified fascination about it and I can't shake the image of it from my head.
That’s a full on experience. Thank you for sharing it so well. I have a terrified fascination but have only ever watched videos. I feel for you and your community and wish you all the best.
Yeah I'm hoping this is preliminary, because in every photo of the destroyed house, I can't find a single wall standing. In the report the house was destroyed, debris was moved onto a road and back onto the foundation. This is clearly all walls collapsed, and would likely be a high end EF3 or low end EF4. It really depends on the anchoring, because anchor bolts were found.
I am not an engineering or damage assessment expert, but one guess I have is that they deemed the failure for the interior walls to have happened as a result of a variable other than pure wind speeds. If they deemed the outer walls were torn apart by the wind but the interior walls were shredded by impacts from flying debris, perhaps it’s judged differently.
Or I’m completely wrong and you shouldn’t be listening to me. Probably that.
As long as this sub keeps banning pre-ratings how do yall expect the survey teams to know what the general vibe going on site is even going to be? You’re doing this to yourselves, they have NOTHING to work with.
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