Our middle school was on a Texas history trip (down from Plano) and stayed at a motel in Jarrell or JUST outside of Jarrell the very same day. I was 12. I remember being in the motel parking lot and not being able to see past the parking lot because the atmosphere was so black. Like walls of black surrounded the motel...like nothing existed beyond the black or the hotel lights behind me (still kinda haunts me to this day) The lighting was so intense and ill never forget the fear I saw in one of the teachers faces when we were told to go inside. There is no doubt we narrowly escaped this tornado and I am so lucky to be typing this now. I am only now realizing 25 years later that I was seeing the darkness of death right in front of me. Us kids had no idea the severity of it. Big thanks to the teachers for keeping us calm. God bless
His name was Billy, we worked together down in Austin. 4 days after the tornado we got the news that his body has been found. After all this time, it still makes me cry to think about it. He was true mentor and a good friend.
At 16:42 several of the residents comment how the authorities wouldn't let them go back to their homes. That is true. The people who were displaced and removed from that area were sent to the Baptist Church in Jarrell. They were angry because for three days, they were not allowed into the destroyed area where their homes were at. Believe me, it would have been an incredible cruelty to allow them back into that area before it was secured and cleared by the emergency responders. We knew the residents were mad at us, but it didn't matter. They just didn't understand.
@@theresedavis2526 And tell them what? That we were picking up body parts ground up in mud and debris? That we honestly couldn't tell what were human or animal remains from the pot roast that came out of someone's freezer? That the pile of skin and intestines we were putting in a trash bag with a stick could only be identified as animal by the color of the fat attached to it? No, we chose to keep that nightmare to ourselves and not share it until we were absolutely certain all traces of bodies, body parts, whether animal or human had been removed. We also had a duty to determine where the bodies/parts originated and did rudimentary surveying to mark locations, measure them from existing concrete slabs and so forth in order to help determine where they came from and perhaps their identity. All this while everything there was covered in a foot of mud and ground up debris from homes, etc. We explained to the families and residents what was prudent to say. Remember, many of the first responders there knew these victims too. Some were related to them.
@@nunyabidness1888that is exactly what i imagined. If vehicles were never found what happened to the victims. Also please understand a person who is suffering the unknown is capable of hearing that simply, the bodies needed to be recovered first. I lived through a wildfire...I know the unknown you cannot imagine going through. Once I was told they were looking for victims, I wasn't so anxious about it. I understood the gravity and that was nothing compared to what I lost. Mine was material. I had my family where others didn't. Don't treat survivors with kid gloves. It doesn't have to be so graphic.
I remember this day all too well. I remember how it was early in the morning and it was so muggy. What was turning out to be a beautiful day would be a very sad day for me and my family. My dad took his life early that morning. Later on that day, we were at my parent's house. I was outside talking to people I knew and it was so muggy still. I remember looking up at the sky and these huge, white football shaped clouds were moving really fast from southwest to northeast. I remember thinking how fast they were moving and the wind wasn't blowing at all. Anyway the next day I saw on tv where a huge tornado had hit a small town in Texas and that there were people missing and homes missing. I remember seeing pieces of the roads were gone. I was grieving my dad, so I just remember some of the news footage. I do remember people were talking about that tornado. Years later, I started watching documentaries on TH-cam and have read several stories about that tornado. My heart goes out to the people that lost their lives that day and to the people that lost their loved ones. God Bless you.
Hello, I am retired senior citizen and my grandson is a new meteorologist (congrats). We had family gathering last month and of course my first question to him, "which tornado was most powerful," without hesitation he said, "Jarrell." Then he pulled out his laptop and proceeded to show me some Jarrell ground/aerial photos, and those vacant concrete slabs were visually shocking. He also said, "twisting speed was 300 mph but what made this tornado so extraordinary was it's slow movement intensifying it's destruction substantially." So here i am and what i researched myself in 30 days was mesmerizing yet eerie. First and foremost R.I.P. to those that perished and my condolences to all family members/friends. 27 deaths caused by the tornado occurred within one subdivision of Jarrell, a neighborhood of 38 well built houses called Double Creek Estates. Each residence was completely swept away and reduced to a concrete slab. The twister produced some of the most extreme ground scouring ever documented as the earth at and around Double Creek was scoured out to depths of 18 inches reducing lush fields of grass to vast expanses of mud. The tornado left an unbroken swath of barren earth vacant of fences, telephone poles, trees, pavement and homes that once dotted the landscape. Cars and heavy wreckers were granulated into small pieces and scattered across the earth never to be identified, think about that for a ..moment. The cause of death for most of the victims was tactfully listed by the county coroner as "multiple trauma", although the truth was obviously far more grisly and difficult to explain to next of kin. Human and animal body parts reportedly littered the area for miles, creating an unbearable stench of decay. Police were forced to close off the entire area as a biohazard zone for weeks as cadaver dogs worked to find human body parts buried throughout the wreckage. Pieces were spread out on the floor of a local volunteer fire department - recovery teams tried to distinguish human remains from animal remains. Most had to be identified through dental records. Many were never recovered at all. What a nightmare. Timothy P. Marshall is a structural and forensic engineer as well as meteorologist. He has conducted more than 10,000 damage surveys of tornadoes, hurricanes and hailstorms. Tim is best of the best and after surveying Jarrell he said, "Houses were obliterated. The destruction was so intense, it serves as a baseline for which all other tornadoes are rated against." Regardless if tornado is moving forward at 8 mph or 80 mph, fact remains that so many surveyors consider Double Creek storm to be the most catastrophic tornado in terms of intensity still today 2022. I've seen photographs of Bridge Creek, Hackleburg-Phil Cambell, Bakersfield Valley, Smithville, Pomeroy, Udall, Brandenburg, Pampa, Parkersburg, Loyal Valley, Philadelphia-MS, Plainfield, Greensburg, Xenia, El Reno, Joplin and they do not compare to Double Creek Estates duration intensity, Nothing Does. I've learned and seen enough What did i learn ? That "Dead Man Walking" is an understatement And my advice ? If you see one, RUN !!!!
Well, your meteorologist grandson didn´t understand the situation a lot (no offense). Jarrell wasn't the strongest, the tornado moved incredibly slow therefore did way more damage than it could with only its winds, they were definitely EF5 but not 310+.
@@eltiofresca4998 Wikipedia has May 3, 1999 Bridge Creek-Moore Oklahoma tornado as fastest ever recorded. Do not get confused, it's not the fastest twisting tornado ever, just the fastest recorded by Doppler on Wheels (DOW) and less than 1% of all tornadoes ever recorded has had their speed measured by DOW because it's almost impossible to accomplish. Imagine driving a huge Doppler truck right next to an F/EF5 tornado going through traffic, cornfields, creeks, trees, rivers, fences, buildings, etc. Besides it's not accurate, hence the +22 / -22 mph variable added to all measured DOW readings. Also, was the Bridge Creek-Moore reading 200 feet high into the tornado or was it measured at ground level? "Tornado winds rapidly decrease near the ground due to friction. So having measured tornado winds several hundred feet above ground does not guarantee that we know what the speeds are at roof-top level. Survey team does not take into account radar-estimated-winds into the equation" - NOAA There is currently no way of knowing the true wind speeds of any tornado. The most accurate way is to survey ground/aerial damage then stamp an EF0 1 2 3 4 5 label on it. Bridge Creek-Moore vs Double Creek-Jarrell, all the evidence is there to witness and there is no comparison. Double Creek Estates is the worst localized damage in Tornado History. In 1997, mobile Doppler radars were in their infancy, and none were deployed on the Jarrell storm. Based on its destruction the Jarrell tornado 'easily' earned an F5 rating on the original Fujita scale, which corrresponded to 'estimated' gusts of 261 - 318 mph. So how do they come up with all these 'estimated' mph gusts? From professional surveyors surveying the damages. Not readings from Mobile Doppler on Wheels.
@@seniordavidmanderson9232 if we are talking about strongest, then check out smithville, did more violent damage than jarrell (you already checked it out but considering how many tornadoes you checked out i dont think you digged in them properly)
I've been through 2 storms that hit the coast of New England, 1978 4' of ocean slush in our living room, 1991 swept the house out to sea but this storm and that image of the walking man is etched into my mind, knowing how violent and slow it progressed over those poor people breaks my heart, even all these years later. RIP🙏
Everybody is talking about it being sunny but it is often sunny before the storm comes in. The storm uses the heat of the day and the cool of the evening with a cold front to mix together. That is what forms tornadoes.
Exactly right: the sun heats up the Earth's atmosphere, adding potential energy, which is just one of the ingredients required to produce a supercell thunderstorm and sometimes, a large, violent tornado.
I worked at DPS headquarters that day. At the time my office was below ground. My daughter called terrified because she thought the tornado was coming towards where we lived in South Austin. I left to go home, and I was driving down North Lamar heading south, I looked in my rear view mirror, and looking north, it was pitched black. Once I got home, I found out what had happened in Jarrell. It was a day, and time, I won’t ever forget.
There are some Tornadoes where you can go, "That Tornado was really a F4 Tornado." but it's given a F5 rating. This Tornado... this Tornado was a certain no-doubter that it was a F5.
@@Spade_WX you're completely WRONG. The 1990 Hesston KS tornado was slow moving and it didn't to the damage intensity that was done in Jarrell. Smithville was fast moving and did the same damage as Jerrall. So your research isn't credible if you believe the Jarrell tornado wasn't powerful. You don't know what you're talking about.
@@wadewilson8011 jarrel was not that powerful. it literally only did so much destruction because it sat in place. smithville did the level of damage jarrel did in half a fucking second of traveling.
@@bearzdlc2172 smithville was not that powerful. Doesn't that sound rediculous to you? The Smithville tornado had some interesting aspects to it. It kept coming back! It had a long path of destruction especially if you combine the separate vortexs. It had a very strong point to it for sure. Jarrell was wicked because it had high winds and a slow forward speed. I'd rather not have to choose which one hit me.
I'm an Oregon native...you celebrate a good lightening storm here--such beauty! Visited the Austin, TX area a couple times mid-Summer...one trip to Ft. Myers, FL mid Summer. The storms they get out there are crazy, scary! Exploring South of Ft. Meyers and there were 4 or 5 thunderclouds piling up. 15-20 miles away. I pull into a huge roadside turn-out to get some pictures and a lightning bolt hit the palm trees 60' away. In the care...leg going like a sowing machine...I was so scared! No storm clouds for 15-20 miles. I can't imagine going to sleep in the mid-West with storm warnings. Enjoyable little storms here in Oregon. Glad to come across this video.
I remember watching an indepth documentary about this day. It was well done, capturing the living nightmare the people of this town went thru. What made my hair stand on end the most was the freeze frame of the tornado as it swept across the land. It looked like a gigantic monster. The vortices that danced around this tornado gave it the appearance of having legs, walking ominously across homes and pastures on a mission to devastate everything near. This thing stripped the skin off of cattle, wiped out entire family's, scalped the earth of grass and turned straws of hay into flying daggers. There are giant machinery and appliances that were never found. It was just... gone. I've watched many many documentaries on tornadoes, but none of them made me feel the way that particular documentary did. It scared the crap out of me and I wasn't even there! I was in a small town outside of Houston far away. My God. Smh Rest in peace to everyone who died and my heart and sympathy will forever be with those who survived. 🙏❤️❤️❤️
I saw that documentary as a young kid. At that time I didn’t really understand what exactly had happened and lived in fear of some shapeless malevolent entity called the “deadman” for some time. Looking back I’m still not entirely convinced it wasn’t exactly that, this thing was a monster.
that is one of the most famous tornado pictures ever. basically there was a native american legend that if you see the "dead man walking", you will die. lo and behold, this monster f5 just so happens to morph into the shape of 2 legs and a scythe just before completely wiping a neighborhood off the map.
@Lorenzo Von Matterhorn mainly because of the incredible windspeeds. The stalling just made it worse. Two example of forward speed has little to do with the damage intensity: The 1990 Hesston KS tornado was an F5. It was slow moving and didn't do the damage done in Jarrell. Smithville was a EF5 that had a forward moving speed of around 65mph. And it did the same damage as Jarrell, just not on a grander scale.
@@wadewilson8011 Not all F5’s are the same, nor are all EF5’s. Sure, the wind speed being so intense was a factor, but it was the stalling that majorly contributed for it. This tornado was just straight up not moving at one point.
not really. jarrel is not scary at all. you can just get away from its path easily and you live. and it was in broad daylight. an actual scary tornado would be hackleburg which was long tracked, couldnt tell it was coming and moving nearly 70 mph and doing ef5 damage nearly its entire life span. jarrel is not scary at all
An F5 tornado hit Lubbock Tx 5/11/1970, killing 26 people, 255 people with significant injuries, and 1,500 with minor injuries. I lived in Amarillo at the time, and saw the destruction in Lubbock. 1,100 homes destroyed, 8,876 homes damaged. The tornado contributed to the Fujita scale development.
The really sad thing is that they could have even ridden a bicycle away from the tornado and survived, it was moving so slowly. They certainly could escape it in a car, one time when the accepted instructions for staying safe were dead wrong.
Even in my early years I was fascinated with Tornados I first heard about Jarrell in a documentary airing on NatGeo it discuss how F5 tornado can grow in sized from a tiny rope to a large wedge tornado the winds are so intense it actually suck dust making it bigger. Though it missed some important details like its struture being a multi-vortex tornado with three sub vortex inside the parent cerculation can actually effect ground damage one oddity about this tornado is its slow ground speed usually violent tornado travels travel at high speeds. But this tornado was so slow almost walking speed it actually cause more destruction litirally obliterating everything it tochess which makes among the most intense tornado if not they most intense so far
There have been bigger tornados. There have tornados that destroyed larger areas (coveted more land). But NONE have been more destructive: Not in the area that hit Double Creek subdivision. Only the 2011 Smithville tornado came close to the same kind of damage intensity as Jarrell.
Yeah, this one scares me the most. Just knowing that mother nature can produce a beast like this is terrifying. Storms like this are why I take tornado warnings very seriously
@@wadewilson8011 And Smithville is even scarier since it caused that damage in under a second and was moving nearly 60 mph. I'm curious what kind of damage it would've done to a suburb the size of the one Jarrell lingered over.
That day I was working for Austin Power and Light and was off of I-35 on the hill above KLBJ Radio doing maintenance and looking North...and you could see a storm coming...worked next 24 hrs...
I know it’s easy to say things when we aren’t there, but I grew up in Georgia and we had pretty crazy tornadoes and tropical storms. When Katrina hit, my mom got my ten year old self, my twin sister, her pretty big self, our two medium sized dogs, and our Guinea pig into the bathtub once.
My father and I watched the Jarrell tornado from our home in Salado. Close to Eight miles away, yet we could feel the air being sucked from our lungs.we couldn’t hear the roar of the tornado but we could feel the rumbling on the ground.
This tornado has a very recognizable picture taken of it and this tornado also nearly hit a airforce base with nuclear weapons on planes at that base nothing about this tornado isn’t terrifying
It's honestly a miracle that more people weren't killed by this tornado considering it was an F5 with the attitude of an F6 hyperbolically (Jarrell to me, pound-for-pound is still the very worst damage over a confined area in climatological history. Definitely a candidate for literally being the most intense tornado ever) saying of course and that a lot of the survivors became motorists in their cars to outrun the funnel which saved their lives. Almost one hundred percent of the time that leads to bad results. But in the case of Jarrell, if you were above ground not in shelter and in the core path because of the crawling forward velocity, you basically had no chances. And I'm not morbidly obsessing over the shock value of that or certainly not glossing over the loss of life either. It is what is. I'm so sorry that there even was a death toll with the natural disasters that day in '97. They all have their own unique stories passed on from their loved ones and they're all fondly remembered.
Love your rational take on this. The slow forward movement had everything to do with nature of the damage left in its wake. People tend to be hyperfocused on wind speed, but in that regard Jarrell likely didn’t exceed F-3. It was the duration of the pounding that elevated damage to F-5. Even the crazy things-animals skinned, pavement sheared from roads etc. can happen in F-3 winds if subjected to them over a long period of time.
@@rossie714 Thanks for the mutual support. I've heard that before that Jarrell possibly only had sustained at that time F3 level winds (To be fair, I don't think that could be true because violent tornadoes that were confirmed to have closer to two hundred mile per winds officially with mobile doppler units and such and even moved more slowly than Jarrell didn't even leave a trace of damage comparable to the vein of Jarrell's so that structural impacts registered would have to correspond to F5 level winds and not to mention visually the sizzling upward motion revealed the horizontal vortices within the main condensation funnel's multi vortex wedge and that's always consistent with EF4-to-EF5 rated tornadoes. Yeah, they were strong tornadoes, but again the science with the damage intensity was far removed from the desolation at the Double Creek Estates. 'Cause even a meandering tornado can only do so much if it's limited by its overall strength. With the cape values being so high that day the actual rotation for all signatures on radar were going to be visually telling anyway. Granted there wasn't a lot of lift or the low level shear in the atmosphere that day, but as I understand it with cape levels literally exploding and manifesting what little tilt is there, in theory any kind of circulations would a have a lower cloud base and therefore be more likely to be intense by default. Case in point with the Smithville EF5 parameters among other tornadic events as I've had it both taught and reexplained to me. Even in the tornado's earlier development in southern Bell county before it crossed the Williamson county line, dissipated shortly and then of course became the monster that it was, it didn't seem like it was just an F2 over Prairie Dell. It looked as if it had unseen power and especially since from what I've read it lifted the top off a reinforced concrete shelter. It probably was just an earlier phase in its genesis. It's been rumored that it was a landspout/mesocyclone hybrid and the overall timing was dialed in perfectly for the conditions. All tornadoes even seemingly innocuous ones are important though for their research and everyone's safety of course. But I'm just saying the other thing as well) although on the other hand I've came across one report that suggested it might've had for brief seconds four hundred mile per wind gusts on the backside of the suction vortices past the helicity of the very core and that possibly could be fact. We'll never know sadly, but it is what it is. I wouldn't hold it past it that somewhere in the background if there ever is any kind of measuring stick for an EF6 tornado, Jarrell arguably came the closest to that being remotely actualized and perhaps encapsulated that somewhere in the background? I've studied unbiased rankings of the most destructive tornadoes in recorded almanacs and I came across a series of metrics that connoted the Smithville EF5 as being the very strongest considering it was basically a quickly moving Jarrell scenario and curved an underground pipe allegedly backwards among some other unprecedented feats in its wake. And the debris granulation in certain locations rivaled that of Jarrell's with it leaving no trace of shrubs in addition to dismemberment of both humans and animals all too unfortunately, but still think Jarrell was the very strongest that we know of considering simply what it did even with the sheer force of the lofted debris playing a heavier role in the destruction aside from just the winds themselves. 'Cause while Smithville and other tornadoes possibly had more overall potential to them, nothing equates to that severity of damage over a singularly confined place where literally even the earth's crust looks like it was ravaged and or raked. There was no powder left. I know the Phil Campbell EF5 (Although, there's debate of that of course especially when stacked alongside Mayfield from last year and the Tri State event, but still) had the longest path of continuously recorded EF5 damage in history, but its lethality was astronomically lower than Jarrell's because it was basically unsurvivable above ground. I wish in an ideal world that everyone had military style underground bunkers or at least shelters in all corners of both the Midwest and Deep South. At least in the most tornadically prone areas of the country. We would dramatically reduce the overall amounts of all fatalities of course.
@@patricklaurojr7427 That's a fair statement, yes. But again, some of the survivor testimonies I've read would've more-than-likely added to the death toll in droves had they not outran the storm. Not the smartest idea, I know. But Jarrell literally was the lone exception to an almost one hundred percent of the time rule. Not to mention the lone families that had underground shelters and that the tornado killed almost as many people in the '99 Moore / Bridge Creek F5 in relatively an eighth of the same distance. I think the Smithville EF5 honestly rivals Jarrell in so many categories to measure overall strength and perhaps it had more potential considering it did Jarrell-like damage in many spots given the fact it was moving seven times faster than Jarrell's recorded speed, but still think that Jarrell consistently takes the cake in terms of actually generated damage power. However, this discussion of the strongest tornadoes is kind of trivial since all violent-to-seemingly innocuous funnels should all be taken seriously for research.
@@Chrisx005x yea I agree with smithville that is a very under rated tornado because wasn't a big town amd wasn't many cameras on it. That thing threw suv into water tower threw a double wide trailer almost 200yards without hitting ground and than bounced another 100. Literally took a guy in his car and kept the guy in car airborne for quarter of mile. And dug 2 ft into ground fields looked like was just plowed by a machine. I'll send you a a link of a phenomenal best timeline of smithville I ever seen. FYI I also feel Tuscaloosa got robbed out of f5 as well. Check this link out
Looking up violent tornadoes that have struck in Texas since Jarrell, there was only one more violent (F4-F5) that occurred before the Enhanced Fujita-Scale was implemented, a F4 that struck Loyal Valley about one month after the Oklahoma City Metro F5 in 1999. The first violent tornado to strike Texas in the new millennium was Granbury on May 15th, 2013. After that: Garland-Rowlett on 12/26/2015, Eustace-Canton #1 on 4/29/2017, and two that struck West of Texarkana on November 4th, 2022, that hit Powderly with the other hitting Clarksville.
I visited the memorial and feel so sorry for what those people must have felt and feared during that time. You can only imagine but they are with Jesus now.
It didn’t throw the cars into the distance, it OBLITERATED THEM. That’s crazy. I lived really close to the town that took the harshest blow from deadliest fire in CA history, people were incinerated when their propane tanks exploded. There’s something really humbling when nature zaps us like helpless bugs.
You can say what you want about GW, but “it sucked the life out of the earth” was a good way to put it…This Jarrell tornado is just so nuts. Watching how small the damn thing was at the beginning and then it just exploded as it sat on the Double Creek homes and families😔 it was like a beautiful, slender apparition and then became like a finger of god…I’ve loved tornadoes since before Twister, but that movie kinda fails on how terrifying the violent tornadoes truly are…The “jumping” F3 in that movie got pretty close to the menace, if only they could have did the F5 as well as the f3😕 I’ve also noticed how insanely different THE SAME tornado can look from multiple filming areas😨I can see how chasers can get caught off guard because they could be seeing something completely different that what someone on the opposite side would see😕 Jarrell is such a unique event, best wishes to all impacted🥺
I am from Lubbock I was living in Austin in ‘97 and working out at a custom guitar shop in the hill country west of town At break time around 3:15 I had mentioned to an Austinite that the weather felt heavy and man was it hot..I said just like before a summer tornado’s atmosphere…we went back in to work and 45 minutes later the sky turned sooooo dark! The wind was coming from all directions…I had Ben through at least 3 tornadoes in Lubbock area and looking around at what the shop was made of I headed my butt home. The next morning 6-7 trees had been split or uprooted! This was occurring at the same moments of the Jarrell storm. In the sw direction from Jarrell. Everyone who stayed at the shop felt that they were all going to die when some winds whipped around and took the energy out!
I lived in killeen back then and I remember being outside with the family and one of my neighbours looking at the sky commenting on how omenous and scary the clouds were looking!! Later in the evening we heard of the devastation in Jarrell. We went there days later and the tornado had uprooted the road, changed the course of creeks and waterways, and the only thing there was concrete foundations with absolutely nothing on them for miles. The few trees left were covered on metal roofing material and cars.
I remember that day to this day I still won’t forget it. We were actually were north of I 35 between round rock and Jarrell we saw that tornado, but when they were saying that the sky was dark green, it was more black and green. We took shelter underneath an overpass right next to the RV park and we survived it all, but some of my friends did not, but there is one thing, but one of the new cast said that that was the last F5 tornado in Texas boy they were wrong. The last F5 tornado that we had in Texas was December 25, 2015 and also Moore Oklahoma 2013 and El Reno Oklahoma
We live in a fairly tornado active are in southern Canada and I remember my dad saying when we were young kids if you ever see the sky turn green get in the nearest ditch. that was only place to take any shelter.
I am 71 and have never see one in my life!! Thank God! But, lived in Atlanta when one hit downtown! THERE SHOULD BE BUILDING CODES THE REQIRE STORM SHELTERS IN THESE STATES, IN EACH NEW BUILD. WHAT IS WRONG WITH THESE BUBBAS.???
I was 17 living in Fort Worth that day my Dad was on a business trip down 35 he called my mom said a Large edge was crossing I-35 in front of him and it sucked all the asphalt off the highway. Last F-5 and it was moving the wrong way very unpredictable freak tradgedy.
Government should have a fund to make sure everyone can have a storm shelter built. I don’t understand why people keep rebuilding in these places but not everyone has a storm shelter or even a basement
7:55 Woww!!!! That motion is disgustingly violent. Look at the vertical motion as well. The whole thing looks like it’s boiling. I don’t care what anyone says about “it moved so slowly, it probably wasn’t stronger than F3” they’re out of their minds. That kind of motion only happens in the most violent of tornadoes.
Wow I remember this day I was at work on parmer ln Sonic drive in and it was cloudy and me and some co workers got on the roof to smoke some weed and you could see the clouds piling up it turned black almost green and the we saw it in the distance and then bang you could see it form Over round rock and then all the first responders you could see the light they were getting ready to go in
If it takes less wind to become an EF-5 on the new EF scale then there shouldn't be as many EF4's then there are since the new scale was in operation. There should be more EF-5's. The new scale is very faulty.
I completely agree with your statement. in fact I will go as far as to say if you are a parent of a family living in tornado alley and you don't have a storm cellar it's negligence. One more thing, there are companies who sell above ground storm shelters and that's a good thing. They claim they can withstand an F5 tornado. But an above ground shelter in this tornado? The Jarrelll tornado? I don't believe for one second you would've survived in anything but maybe a deep storm cellar. The outflow seen in the video demonstrates this was a multi generational event that we might not ever see again.
@@Dallas1722 You are wrong if you don't think an above ground storm shelter is just as strong as a below ground. The difference is above ground per FEMA standards has to use steel reinforced rebar (every 12 inches) to compensate for strength. Above ground storm shelters can and do survive the strongest tornados. You don't have to be below ground to be 100% safe. That is a myth.
@@inthedarkwoods2022 Well first, I'm not wrong because you don't know any more than I do that anything above ground could've survived those winds, for that long. I know all about shelters that survived Moore and Joplin but even those tornados do not compare with the slow forward speed of Jarrell. I've heard countless meteorologists say that unless you were below ground it was an unsurvivable event. What is a myth is anybody saying an above-ground shelter in Jarrell would've been 100% safe.
I lived n Austin at the time. Work let out early in my office due to the weather emergency and upon driving home, I was stunned by the eerie yellow sky 🌌 and array of mamamtus clouds. ☁️ it was truly frightening what was going on, hearing about the massive tornado 🌪️ over the radio as it happened I couldn’t wait to get home to my dog. 🐩
What do you mean by "the last F5 to hit" ? I'm confused because there has been F5s since Jarrell's. You mean the last F5 to hit specifically the town of Jarrell ?
Interestingly enough ... it was the fourth-to-final tornado to be rated F5. Bridgecreek-Moore was the final F5 ever. Everything after that (starting with Greensburg) was EF5.
Because the Fujita scale was changed and tornadoes are now on the EF scale instead of the older F scale. This tornado made meteorologists view everything differently, the damage was off the charts.
What happens when a storm like that slows down to 5 mph. This was one of those tornadoes where people should have gotten their cars and left.. That's usually the wrong thing to do
I am not from america but its all our news stations were broadcasting I'm from Canada and i remember it being on our news channel, a little bit and since then i been scared shitless of tornadoes
I really don't understand why houses built in areas that get a lot of tornadoes aren't built to a higher standard. Or at the very least have a tornado shelter built in the floor. It really should be a standard for them... If it was built into the house when it was built. The cost wouldn't be THAT much extra...
This should be a warning to storm chasers that are coming out by the hundreds jockeying to get footage. There are tour vans taking people out there, even some have their kids with them. The danger they are posing to those trying to get away from and their distracted driving tactics are mind blowing to me. I get these are back dirt roads, but when you have families trying to flee as the number of storm chasers continues to grow like it is now is a precursor for a disaster that could be avoided if law enforcement put an end to these chases. Right now any one who can get access to a car can go chasing. While there are several knowledgeable chasers who can read the weather, there are twice the number who have no idea what they are getting themselves into. This storm clearly shows what it can do to a vehicle since many were never found and there are way too many out there believing that if it's slow they can get out in time. It needs to be addressed before it ends lives.
Jarrell and Joplin are probably the most sinister tornadoes I've ever heard of. They were both super strong, worst case scenarios that were relentless and unforgiving. Maybe they didn't have the "highest wind speed recorded", but the destruction and lives lost are in my mind, what would make the worst tornadoes. Yes, Moore was bad as well. Probably #3, but I feel like these 2 are just down right sinister. The Jarrell tornado almost seemed to target the sub division specifically and sat on it which is horrifying. Almost like it wouldn't leave until nothing was left. I would rank Jarrell second to Joplin though. The Joplin tornado was just so evil that it killed several even after it was over via mental and physical trauma and even infections from the debris which is insane.
As of June 10, 2024, there have been 964 confirmed twisters this year, although many of the ratings are considered preliminary until published in the National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) database.28/05/2024. I DON'T UNDERSTAND WHY THE SURPRISE OF A NATURAL CATASTROPHE HAPPENING IF THE AREA IS TOTALLY INTENDED FOR NATURAL CATASTROPHES IN THIS CASE TORNADO. I WOULDN'T CHOOSE TO LIVE IN THAT AREA LIKE BUT, THEY CHOSE AND THEY ALREADY KNEW THE POSSIBILITIES SO BE PREPARED.
Joplin was horrific. Slow moving tornado. Jarrell was another slow moving monster. Horrific . While it is true humans can't do much against this much energy in the atmosphere above a population, there is something that can be done to at least save more lives. Both tragedies show politicians can do much better than they have been doing. Instead of all the bickering and politicking, why not just focus on giving us a better chance (even if it's just the slightest) of surviving and not having to bury loved ones?
Our middle school was on a Texas history trip (down from Plano) and stayed at a motel in Jarrell or JUST outside of Jarrell the very same day. I was 12. I remember being in the motel parking lot and not being able to see past the parking lot because the atmosphere was so black. Like walls of black surrounded the motel...like nothing existed beyond the black or the hotel lights behind me (still kinda haunts me to this day) The lighting was so intense and ill never forget the fear I saw in one of the teachers faces when we were told to go inside. There is no doubt we narrowly escaped this tornado and I am so lucky to be typing this now. I am only now realizing 25 years later that I was seeing the darkness of death right in front of me. Us kids had no idea the severity of it. Big thanks to the teachers for keeping us calm. God bless
This tornado chills me to the bone. It was just so vicious, the way it granulated all the debris and just left NOTHING.
10:39 - Her father's last words, "Hold on tight" in ink on her arm.
His name was Billy, we worked together down in Austin. 4 days after the tornado we got the news that his body has been found. After all this time, it still makes me cry to think about it. He was true mentor and a good friend.
@johnholder4208 my condolences to you. He is a hero. He saved his families life. A man can show nothing greater than that with his kind of love.
At 16:42 several of the residents comment how the authorities wouldn't let them go back to their homes. That is true. The people who were displaced and removed from that area were sent to the Baptist Church in Jarrell. They were angry because for three days, they were not allowed into the destroyed area where their homes were at. Believe me, it would have been an incredible cruelty to allow them back into that area before it was secured and cleared by the emergency responders. We knew the residents were mad at us, but it didn't matter. They just didn't understand.
They should've been told then. Why shield them?
@@theresedavis2526 And tell them what? That we were picking up body parts ground up in mud and debris? That we honestly couldn't tell what were human or animal remains from the pot roast that came out of someone's freezer? That the pile of skin and intestines we were putting in a trash bag with a stick could only be identified as animal by the color of the fat attached to it? No, we chose to keep that nightmare to ourselves and not share it until we were absolutely certain all traces of bodies, body parts, whether animal or human had been removed. We also had a duty to determine where the bodies/parts originated and did rudimentary surveying to mark locations, measure them from existing concrete slabs and so forth in order to help determine where they came from and perhaps their identity. All this while everything there was covered in a foot of mud and ground up debris from homes, etc.
We explained to the families and residents what was prudent to say. Remember, many of the first responders there knew these victims too. Some were related to them.
@@nunyabidness1888 God bless and comfort you and all the other first responders.
@@nunyabidness1888p
@@nunyabidness1888that is exactly what i imagined. If vehicles were never found what happened to the victims.
Also please understand a person who is suffering the unknown is capable of hearing that simply, the bodies needed to be recovered first.
I lived through a wildfire...I know the unknown you cannot imagine going through. Once I was told they were looking for victims, I wasn't so anxious about it. I understood the gravity and that was nothing compared to what I lost. Mine was material. I had my family where others didn't.
Don't treat survivors with kid gloves. It doesn't have to be so graphic.
I remember this day all too well. I remember how it was early in the morning and it was so muggy. What was turning out to be a beautiful day would be a very sad day for me and my family. My dad took his life early that morning. Later on that day, we were at my parent's house. I was outside talking to people I knew and it was so muggy still. I remember looking up at the sky and these huge, white football shaped clouds were moving really fast from southwest to northeast. I remember thinking how fast they were moving and the wind wasn't blowing at all. Anyway the next day I saw on tv where a huge tornado had hit a small town in Texas and that there were people missing and homes missing. I remember seeing pieces of the roads were gone. I was grieving my dad, so I just remember some of the news footage. I do remember people were talking about that tornado. Years later, I started watching documentaries on TH-cam and have read several stories about that tornado. My heart goes out to the people that lost their lives that day and to the people that lost their loved ones. God Bless you.
So sorry for you, that you had to go through all that.
I'm so sorry about your loss.
When it goes all calm and quiet is exactly when you should be worried.
That's what Tim Samaras told Carl Young before they got hit by a sub-vortices of El Reno.
@@wadewilson8011 How did you know that?
They were probably live streaming…
And the air is green.
Yup. We survived an EF2 back in May and it went silent. It was so eerie and I KNEW that silence meant trouble.
This was a well produced, respectful segment.
Hello, I am retired senior citizen and my grandson is a new meteorologist (congrats). We had family gathering last month and of course my first question to him, "which tornado was most powerful," without hesitation he said, "Jarrell." Then he pulled out his laptop and proceeded to show me some Jarrell ground/aerial photos, and those vacant concrete slabs were visually shocking. He also said, "twisting speed was 300 mph but what made this tornado so extraordinary was it's slow movement intensifying it's destruction substantially." So here i am and what i researched myself in 30 days was mesmerizing yet eerie. First and foremost R.I.P. to those that perished and my condolences to all family members/friends.
27 deaths caused by the tornado occurred within one subdivision of Jarrell, a neighborhood of 38 well built houses called Double Creek Estates. Each residence was completely swept away and reduced to a concrete slab. The twister produced some of the most extreme ground scouring ever documented as the earth at and around Double Creek was scoured out to depths of 18 inches reducing lush fields of grass to vast expanses of mud. The tornado left an unbroken swath of barren earth vacant of fences, telephone poles, trees, pavement and homes that once dotted the landscape. Cars and heavy wreckers were granulated into small pieces and scattered across the earth never to be identified, think about that for a ..moment.
The cause of death for most of the victims was tactfully listed by the county coroner as "multiple trauma", although the truth was obviously far more grisly and difficult to explain to next of kin. Human and animal body parts reportedly littered the area for miles, creating an unbearable stench of decay. Police were forced to close off the entire area as a biohazard zone for weeks as cadaver dogs worked to find human body parts buried throughout the wreckage. Pieces were spread out on the floor of a local volunteer fire department - recovery teams tried to distinguish human remains from animal remains. Most had to be identified through dental records. Many were never recovered at all. What a nightmare.
Timothy P. Marshall is a structural and forensic engineer as well as meteorologist. He has conducted more than 10,000 damage surveys of tornadoes, hurricanes and hailstorms. Tim is best of the best and after surveying Jarrell he said, "Houses were obliterated. The destruction was so intense, it serves as a baseline for which all other tornadoes are rated against."
Regardless if tornado is moving forward at 8 mph or 80 mph, fact remains that so many surveyors consider Double Creek storm to be the most catastrophic tornado in terms of intensity still today 2022. I've seen photographs of Bridge Creek, Hackleburg-Phil Cambell, Bakersfield Valley, Smithville, Pomeroy, Udall, Brandenburg, Pampa, Parkersburg, Loyal Valley, Philadelphia-MS, Plainfield, Greensburg, Xenia, El Reno, Joplin and they do not compare to Double Creek Estates duration intensity, Nothing Does.
I've learned and seen enough
What did i learn ?
That "Dead Man Walking" is an understatement
And my advice ?
If you see one,
RUN !!!!
Well, your meteorologist grandson didn´t understand the situation a lot (no offense). Jarrell wasn't the strongest, the tornado moved incredibly slow therefore did way more damage than it could with only its winds, they were definitely EF5 but not 310+.
But if we are talking about damage, Jarrell was the strongest one, if you mean windspeeds, then I don't agree, sorry.
@@eltiofresca4998 Wikipedia has May 3, 1999 Bridge Creek-Moore Oklahoma tornado as fastest ever recorded. Do not get confused, it's not the fastest twisting tornado ever, just the fastest recorded by Doppler on Wheels (DOW) and less than 1% of all tornadoes ever recorded has had their speed measured by DOW because it's almost impossible to accomplish.
Imagine driving a huge Doppler truck right next to an F/EF5 tornado going through traffic, cornfields, creeks, trees, rivers, fences, buildings, etc. Besides it's not accurate, hence the +22 / -22 mph variable added to all measured DOW readings. Also, was the Bridge Creek-Moore reading 200 feet high into the tornado or was it measured at ground level?
"Tornado winds rapidly decrease near the ground due to friction. So having measured tornado winds several hundred feet above ground does not guarantee that we know what the speeds are at roof-top level. Survey team does not take into account radar-estimated-winds into the equation" - NOAA
There is currently no way of knowing the true wind speeds of any tornado. The most accurate way is to survey ground/aerial damage then stamp an EF0 1 2 3 4 5 label on it. Bridge Creek-Moore vs Double Creek-Jarrell, all the evidence is there to witness and there is no comparison. Double Creek Estates is the worst localized damage in Tornado History.
In 1997, mobile Doppler radars were in their infancy, and none were deployed on the Jarrell storm. Based on its destruction the Jarrell tornado 'easily' earned an F5 rating on the original Fujita scale, which corrresponded to 'estimated' gusts of 261 - 318 mph. So how do they come up with all these 'estimated' mph gusts? From professional surveyors surveying the damages. Not readings from Mobile Doppler on Wheels.
@@seniordavidmanderson9232 if we are talking about strongest, then check out smithville, did more violent damage than jarrell (you already checked it out but considering how many tornadoes you checked out i dont think you digged in them properly)
@@eltiofresca4998
he has I can attest the scouring isn’t the same
Jarrell was lethal bro
Wow! Such a great mini documentary. Great work KXAN, and bless all the families in Jerrell. We will never forget. ❤️
I've been through 2 storms that hit the coast of New England, 1978 4' of ocean slush in our living room, 1991 swept the house out to sea but this storm and that image of the walking man is etched into my mind, knowing how violent and slow it progressed over those poor people breaks my heart, even all these years later. RIP🙏
I was 9 years old living in Hewitt. It was a very eerie day, 1st time hearing Tornado sirens. 🙏
Everybody is talking about it being sunny but it is often sunny before the storm comes in. The storm uses the heat of the day and the cool of the evening with a cold front to mix together. That is what forms tornadoes.
Exactly right: the sun heats up the Earth's atmosphere, adding potential energy, which is just one of the ingredients required to produce a supercell thunderstorm and sometimes, a large, violent tornado.
Once the that layer of atmosphere cools off its like a bomb exploding
I worked at DPS headquarters that day. At the time my office was below ground. My daughter called terrified because she thought the tornado was coming towards where we lived in South Austin. I left to go home, and I was driving down North Lamar heading south, I looked in my rear view mirror, and looking north, it was pitched black. Once I got home, I found out what had happened in Jarrell. It was a day, and time, I won’t ever forget.
Wow this was in depth. I’m so sorry to everyone who went through this.
There are some Tornadoes where you can go, "That Tornado was really a F4 Tornado." but it's given a F5 rating. This Tornado... this Tornado was a certain no-doubter that it was a F5.
Nope. If it went normal tornado speed it would have not done that much damahe
@@Spade_WX you're completely WRONG. The 1990 Hesston KS tornado was slow moving and it didn't to the damage intensity that was done in Jarrell.
Smithville was fast moving and did the same damage as Jerrall. So your research isn't credible if you believe the Jarrell tornado wasn't powerful. You don't know what you're talking about.
@@wadewilson8011 jarrel was not that powerful. it literally only did so much destruction because it sat in place. smithville did the level of damage jarrel did in half a fucking second of traveling.
Smithville was sucking sewer tanks out of the ground 😮😮
@@bearzdlc2172 smithville was not that powerful. Doesn't that sound rediculous to you? The Smithville tornado had some interesting aspects to it. It kept coming back! It had a long path of destruction especially if you combine the separate vortexs. It had a very strong point to it for sure. Jarrell was wicked because it had high winds and a slow forward speed. I'd rather not have to choose which one hit me.
I'm an Oregon native...you celebrate a good lightening storm here--such beauty! Visited the Austin, TX area a couple times mid-Summer...one trip to Ft. Myers, FL mid Summer. The storms they get out there are crazy, scary! Exploring South of Ft. Meyers and there were 4 or 5 thunderclouds piling up. 15-20 miles away. I pull into a huge roadside turn-out to get some pictures and a lightning bolt hit the palm trees 60' away. In the care...leg going like a sowing machine...I was so scared! No storm clouds for 15-20 miles. I can't imagine going to sleep in the mid-West with storm warnings. Enjoyable little storms here in Oregon. Glad to come across this video.
My heart especially goes out to Kristin.
I remember a family of 3 from Laredo lived there in Jarrell unfortunately the young mother and her two sons tried to escape but they didn't make it..
God Bless the survivors
I remember watching an indepth documentary about this day. It was well done, capturing the living nightmare the people of this town went thru. What made my hair stand on end the most was the freeze frame of the tornado as it swept across the land. It looked like a gigantic monster. The vortices that danced around this tornado gave it the appearance of having legs, walking ominously across homes and pastures on a mission to devastate everything near. This thing stripped the skin off of cattle, wiped out entire family's, scalped the earth of grass and turned straws of hay into flying daggers. There are giant machinery and appliances that were never found. It was just... gone. I've watched many many documentaries on tornadoes, but none of them made me feel the way that particular documentary did. It scared the crap out of me and I wasn't even there! I was in a small town outside of Houston far away. My God. Smh Rest in peace to everyone who died and my heart and sympathy will forever be with those who survived. 🙏❤️❤️❤️
I saw that documentary as a young kid. At that time I didn’t really understand what exactly had happened and lived in fear of some shapeless malevolent entity called the “deadman” for some time. Looking back I’m still not entirely convinced it wasn’t exactly that, this thing was a monster.
Hell on earth
that is one of the most famous tornado pictures ever. basically there was a native american legend that if you see the "dead man walking", you will die. lo and behold, this monster f5 just so happens to morph into the shape of 2 legs and a scythe just before completely wiping a neighborhood off the map.
@Lorenzo Von Matterhorn mainly because of the incredible windspeeds. The stalling just made it worse.
Two example of forward speed has little to do with the damage intensity:
The 1990 Hesston KS tornado was an F5. It was slow moving and didn't do the damage done in Jarrell.
Smithville was a EF5 that had a forward moving speed of around 65mph. And it did the same damage as Jarrell, just not on a grander scale.
@@wadewilson8011 Not all F5’s are the same, nor are all EF5’s.
Sure, the wind speed being so intense was a factor, but it was the stalling that majorly contributed for it. This tornado was just straight up not moving at one point.
The restaurant the chili’s manager referenced (roof came off) was a “El Chico”, NOT a El Fenix. Just FYI.
Remember the monster that "walked" into Jarrell.
Remember the town that gave us the knowledge.
Remember the 27 that still watches over us all.
The Jarrell tornado scares me more than any other which is saying something. May every lost soul RIP and I pray for comfort for the survivors…
Same here, that tornado was horrifying!
not really. jarrel is not scary at all. you can just get away from its path easily and you live. and it was in broad daylight. an actual scary tornado would be hackleburg which was long tracked, couldnt tell it was coming and moving nearly 70 mph and doing ef5 damage nearly its entire life span. jarrel is not scary at all
@@bearzdlc2172competitive
tornadoes! Well, I bet the victims were scared. And the damage... unprecedented.
An F5 tornado hit Lubbock Tx 5/11/1970, killing 26 people, 255 people with significant injuries, and 1,500 with minor injuries. I lived in Amarillo at the time, and saw the destruction in Lubbock. 1,100 homes destroyed, 8,876 homes damaged. The tornado contributed to the Fujita scale development.
That was initially rated a F6
The really sad thing is that they could have even ridden a bicycle away from the tornado and survived, it was moving so slowly. They certainly could escape it in a car, one time when the accepted instructions for staying safe were dead wrong.
Even in my early years I was fascinated with Tornados I first heard about Jarrell in a documentary airing on NatGeo it discuss how F5 tornado can grow in sized from a tiny rope to a large wedge tornado the winds are so intense it actually suck dust making it bigger. Though it missed some important details like its struture being a multi-vortex tornado with three sub vortex inside the parent cerculation can actually effect ground damage one oddity about this tornado is its slow ground speed usually violent tornado travels travel at high speeds. But this tornado was so slow almost walking speed it actually cause more destruction litirally obliterating everything it tochess which makes among the most intense tornado if not they most intense so far
There may have been bigger and more destructive tornados. But this one shakes me to my core. Horrible.
There have been bigger tornados. There have tornados that destroyed larger areas (coveted more land). But NONE have been more destructive: Not in the area that hit Double Creek subdivision. Only the 2011 Smithville tornado came close to the same kind of damage intensity as Jarrell.
Yeah, this one scares me the most. Just knowing that mother nature can produce a beast like this is terrifying. Storms like this are why I take tornado warnings very seriously
@@wadewilson8011 And Smithville is even scarier since it caused that damage in under a second and was moving nearly 60 mph. I'm curious what kind of damage it would've done to a suburb the size of the one Jarrell lingered over.
That day I was working for Austin Power and Light and was off of I-35 on the hill above KLBJ Radio doing maintenance and looking North...and you could see a storm coming...worked next 24 hrs...
I was 16 when that happened. I was in Dallas, creepy storm from what they showed on tv back then was worse than the current videos on TH-cam.
God Bless you Malory Sumners and others who went thru the devastration.
A man in a city 50 miles away found photo albums from families in Jarrell.
50 miles.
Photo albums, clothing articles.
Kristin LaFrance...she's a toughie!
she really is!!
She got that from her dad, he was a great guy.
I know it’s easy to say things when we aren’t there, but I grew up in Georgia and we had pretty crazy tornadoes and tropical storms. When Katrina hit, my mom got my ten year old self, my twin sister, her pretty big self, our two medium sized dogs, and our Guinea pig into the bathtub once.
I used to live in Cedar Park!
I live in eastTexas now! We
have bad storms here too! I
have a tornado shelter, so I
feel safer!
So terrifying! Certainly a day nobody could ever forget. RIP to all who lost their lives that day!And their families ❤
My father and I watched the Jarrell tornado from our home in Salado. Close to Eight miles away, yet we could feel the air being sucked from our lungs.we couldn’t hear the roar of the tornado but we could feel the rumbling on the ground.
At 7:08 you can tell that is one of the most intense tornadoes off all-time
This tornado has a very recognizable picture taken of it and this tornado also nearly hit a airforce base with nuclear weapons on planes at that base
nothing about this tornado isn’t terrifying
Fantastic retrospective. Really great work and story telling.
I was home in Copperas Cove tuat day doing laundry in my garage and when I went outside and looked at the sky, it looked ominious.
I live close to Jarrell now. Every time I drive through, I think of the tornado.
It's honestly a miracle that more people weren't killed by this tornado considering it was an F5 with the attitude of an F6 hyperbolically (Jarrell to me, pound-for-pound is still the very worst damage over a confined area in climatological history. Definitely a candidate for literally being the most intense tornado ever) saying of course and that a lot of the survivors became motorists in their cars to outrun the funnel which saved their lives. Almost one hundred percent of the time that leads to bad results. But in the case of Jarrell, if you were above ground not in shelter and in the core path because of the crawling forward velocity, you basically had no chances. And I'm not morbidly obsessing over the shock value of that or certainly not glossing over the loss of life either. It is what is. I'm so sorry that there even was a death toll with the natural disasters that day in '97. They all have their own unique stories passed on from their loved ones and they're all fondly remembered.
Love your rational take on this. The slow forward movement had everything to do with nature of the damage left in its wake. People tend to be hyperfocused on wind speed, but in that regard Jarrell likely didn’t exceed F-3. It was the duration of the pounding that elevated damage to F-5. Even the crazy things-animals skinned, pavement sheared from roads etc. can happen in F-3 winds if subjected to them over a long period of time.
@@rossie714 Thanks for the mutual support. I've heard that before that Jarrell possibly only had sustained at that time F3 level winds (To be fair, I don't think that could be true because violent tornadoes that were confirmed to have closer to two hundred mile per winds officially with mobile doppler units and such and even moved more slowly than Jarrell didn't even leave a trace of damage comparable to the vein of Jarrell's so that structural impacts registered would have to correspond to F5 level winds and not to mention visually the sizzling upward motion revealed the horizontal vortices within the main condensation funnel's multi vortex wedge and that's always consistent with EF4-to-EF5 rated tornadoes. Yeah, they were strong tornadoes, but again the science with the damage intensity was far removed from the desolation at the Double Creek Estates. 'Cause even a meandering tornado can only do so much if it's limited by its overall strength. With the cape values being so high that day the actual rotation for all signatures on radar were going to be visually telling anyway. Granted there wasn't a lot of lift or the low level shear in the atmosphere that day, but as I understand it with cape levels literally exploding and manifesting what little tilt is there, in theory any kind of circulations would a have a lower cloud base and therefore be more likely to be intense by default. Case in point with the Smithville EF5 parameters among other tornadic events as I've had it both taught and reexplained to me. Even in the tornado's earlier development in southern Bell county before it crossed the Williamson county line, dissipated shortly and then of course became the monster that it was, it didn't seem like it was just an F2 over Prairie Dell. It looked as if it had unseen power and especially since from what I've read it lifted the top off a reinforced concrete shelter. It probably was just an earlier phase in its genesis. It's been rumored that it was a landspout/mesocyclone hybrid and the overall timing was dialed in perfectly for the conditions. All tornadoes even seemingly innocuous ones are important though for their research and everyone's safety of course. But I'm just saying the other thing as well) although on the other hand I've came across one report that suggested it might've had for brief seconds four hundred mile per wind gusts on the backside of the suction vortices past the helicity of the very core and that possibly could be fact. We'll never know sadly, but it is what it is. I wouldn't hold it past it that somewhere in the background if there ever is any kind of measuring stick for an EF6 tornado, Jarrell arguably came the closest to that being remotely actualized and perhaps encapsulated that somewhere in the background? I've studied unbiased rankings of the most destructive tornadoes in recorded almanacs and I came across a series of metrics that connoted the Smithville EF5 as being the very strongest considering it was basically a quickly moving Jarrell scenario and curved an underground pipe allegedly backwards among some other unprecedented feats in its wake. And the debris granulation in certain locations rivaled that of Jarrell's with it leaving no trace of shrubs in addition to dismemberment of both humans and animals all too unfortunately, but still think Jarrell was the very strongest that we know of considering simply what it did even with the sheer force of the lofted debris playing a heavier role in the destruction aside from just the winds themselves. 'Cause while Smithville and other tornadoes possibly had more overall potential to them, nothing equates to that severity of damage over a singularly confined place where literally even the earth's crust looks like it was ravaged and or raked. There was no powder left. I know the Phil Campbell EF5 (Although, there's debate of that of course especially when stacked alongside Mayfield from last year and the Tri State event, but still) had the longest path of continuously recorded EF5 damage in history, but its lethality was astronomically lower than Jarrell's because it was basically unsurvivable above ground. I wish in an ideal world that everyone had military style underground bunkers or at least shelters in all corners of both the Midwest and Deep South. At least in the most tornadically prone areas of the country. We would dramatically reduce the overall amounts of all fatalities of course.
More ppp weren't killed cuZ wasn't a big town was nothing like size if joplin or moore
@@patricklaurojr7427 That's a fair statement, yes. But again, some of the survivor testimonies I've read would've more-than-likely added to the death toll in droves had they not outran the storm. Not the smartest idea, I know. But Jarrell literally was the lone exception to an almost one hundred percent of the time rule. Not to mention the lone families that had underground shelters and that the tornado killed almost as many people in the '99 Moore / Bridge Creek F5 in relatively an eighth of the same distance. I think the Smithville EF5 honestly rivals Jarrell in so many categories to measure overall strength and perhaps it had more potential considering it did Jarrell-like damage in many spots given the fact it was moving seven times faster than Jarrell's recorded speed, but still think that Jarrell consistently takes the cake in terms of actually generated damage power. However, this discussion of the strongest tornadoes is kind of trivial since all violent-to-seemingly innocuous funnels should all be taken seriously for research.
@@Chrisx005x yea I agree with smithville that is a very under rated tornado because wasn't a big town amd wasn't many cameras on it. That thing threw suv into water tower threw a double wide trailer almost 200yards without hitting ground and than bounced another 100. Literally took a guy in his car and kept the guy in car airborne for quarter of mile. And dug 2 ft into ground fields looked like was just plowed by a machine. I'll send you a a link of a phenomenal best timeline of smithville I ever seen. FYI I also feel Tuscaloosa got robbed out of f5 as well. Check this link out
Looking up violent tornadoes that have struck in Texas since Jarrell, there was only one more violent (F4-F5) that occurred before the Enhanced Fujita-Scale was implemented, a F4 that struck Loyal Valley about one month after the Oklahoma City Metro F5 in 1999. The first violent tornado to strike Texas in the new millennium was Granbury on May 15th, 2013. After that: Garland-Rowlett on 12/26/2015, Eustace-Canton #1 on 4/29/2017, and two that struck West of Texarkana on November 4th, 2022, that hit Powderly with the other hitting Clarksville.
I visited the memorial and feel so sorry for what those people must have felt and feared during that time. You can only imagine but they are with Jesus now.
It didn’t throw the cars into the distance, it OBLITERATED THEM. That’s crazy. I lived really close to the town that took the harshest blow from deadliest fire in CA history, people were incinerated when their propane tanks exploded. There’s something really humbling when nature zaps us like helpless bugs.
I think Gary England from KWTV and Jim Spencer from KXAN are the best storm trackers ever.
You can say what you want about GW, but “it sucked the life out of the earth” was a good way to put it…This Jarrell tornado is just so nuts. Watching how small the damn thing was at the beginning and then it just exploded as it sat on the Double Creek homes and families😔 it was like a beautiful, slender apparition and then became like a finger of god…I’ve loved tornadoes since before Twister, but that movie kinda fails on how terrifying the violent tornadoes truly are…The “jumping” F3 in that movie got pretty close to the menace, if only they could have did the F5 as well as the f3😕
I’ve also noticed how insanely different THE SAME tornado can look from multiple filming areas😨I can see how chasers can get caught off guard because they could be seeing something completely different that what someone on the opposite side would see😕
Jarrell is such a unique event, best wishes to all impacted🥺
I am from Lubbock
I was living in Austin in ‘97 and working out at a custom guitar shop in the hill country west of town
At break time around 3:15 I had mentioned to an Austinite that the weather felt heavy and man was it hot..I said just like before a summer tornado’s atmosphere…we went back in to work and 45 minutes later the sky turned sooooo dark!
The wind was coming from all directions…I had Ben through at least 3 tornadoes in Lubbock area and looking around at what the shop was made of I headed my butt home.
The next morning 6-7 trees had been split or uprooted!
This was occurring at the same moments of the Jarrell storm. In the sw direction from Jarrell.
Everyone who stayed at the shop felt that they were all going to die when some winds whipped around and took the energy out!
Every time I drive from Dallas to Austin, I get quiet and reflect driving near Jarrell. It's gut wrenching to hear the stories from that day.
I wad a truck driver at the time and was staying about 10 minutes ahead of that storm trying to head south.
Dead man walking into Jarrell…
There talking about the tornado that took the Igo family so show love please also Igo elementary school is the school my daughter goes to
Let God keep them in his hand forever
I lived in killeen back then and I remember being outside with the family and one of my neighbours looking at the sky commenting on how omenous and scary the clouds were looking!! Later in the evening we heard of the devastation in Jarrell. We went there days later and the tornado had uprooted the road, changed the course of creeks and waterways, and the only thing there was concrete foundations with absolutely nothing on them for miles. The few trees left were covered on metal roofing material and cars.
The captions sometimes say “vegeta scale” instead of “Fujita scale” this makes every tornado I see become a dragon ball reference
I remember that day to this day I still won’t forget it. We were actually were north of I 35 between round rock and Jarrell we saw that tornado, but when they were saying that the sky was dark green, it was more black and green. We took shelter underneath an overpass right next to the RV park and we survived it all, but some of my friends did not, but there is one thing, but one of the new cast said that that was the last F5 tornado in Texas boy they were wrong. The last F5 tornado that we had in Texas was December 25, 2015 and also Moore Oklahoma 2013 and El Reno Oklahoma
The person comforting the burro at 14:55 😥
We live in a fairly tornado active are in southern Canada and I remember my dad saying when we were young kids if you ever see the sky turn green get in the nearest ditch. that was only place to take any shelter.
Arguably the most intense tornado damage ever recorded.🌪️ God bless those poor souls 🙏
I am 71 and have never see one in my life!! Thank God! But, lived in Atlanta when one hit downtown!
THERE SHOULD BE BUILDING CODES THE REQIRE STORM SHELTERS IN THESE STATES, IN EACH NEW BUILD. WHAT IS WRONG WITH THESE BUBBAS.???
Basements and or storm shelters!
That's what I say!
I came by on I-35 about10 min after this. There were emergancy vehicles coming down interstate. All the way to Austin
I was 17 living in Fort Worth that day my Dad was on a business trip down 35 he called my mom said a Large edge was crossing I-35 in front of him and it sucked all the asphalt off the highway. Last F-5 and it was moving the wrong way very unpredictable freak tradgedy.
God Bless all 27 victims and may they all Rest In Peace.
I watched it form in the field across from the house we lived in at the time.
Horrible.
Wow. These are getting worse and worse.
I live in California and even I know that if the clouds look green that you take shelter and turn on the news
Government should have a fund to make sure everyone can have a storm shelter built. I don’t understand why people keep rebuilding in these places but not everyone has a storm shelter or even a basement
Whares the sirens
They sounded.
Lubbock, TX 1970 originally classified as an F6 and eventually downgraded to F5.
7:55 Woww!!!! That motion is disgustingly violent. Look at the vertical motion as well. The whole thing looks like it’s boiling.
I don’t care what anyone says about “it moved so slowly, it probably wasn’t stronger than F3” they’re out of their minds. That kind of motion only happens in the most violent of tornadoes.
Wow I remember this day I was at work on parmer ln Sonic drive in and it was cloudy and me and some co workers got on the roof to smoke some weed and you could see the clouds piling up it turned black almost green and the we saw it in the distance and then bang you could see it form Over round rock and then all the first responders you could see the light they were getting ready to go in
If it takes less wind to become an EF-5 on the new EF scale then there shouldn't be as many EF4's then there are since the new scale was in operation. There should be more EF-5's. The new scale is very faulty.
I’m trying to understand what you’re trying to say.
Thank God Indont live in Texas.
If you love your family, you will have a storm shelter
I completely agree with your statement. in fact I will go as far as to say if you are a parent of a family living in tornado alley and you don't have a storm cellar it's negligence. One more thing, there are companies who sell above ground storm shelters and that's a good thing. They claim they can withstand an F5 tornado. But an above ground shelter in this tornado? The Jarrelll tornado? I don't believe for one second you would've survived in anything but maybe a deep storm cellar. The outflow seen in the video demonstrates this was a multi generational event that we might not ever see again.
@@Dallas1722 You are wrong if you don't think an above ground storm shelter is just as strong as a below ground. The difference is above ground per FEMA standards has to use steel reinforced rebar (every 12 inches) to compensate for strength. Above ground storm shelters can and do survive the strongest tornados. You don't have to be below ground to be 100% safe. That is a myth.
@@inthedarkwoods2022 Well first, I'm not wrong because you don't know any more than I do that anything above ground could've survived those winds, for that long. I know all about shelters that survived Moore and Joplin but even those tornados do not compare with the slow forward speed of Jarrell. I've heard countless meteorologists say that unless you were below ground it was an unsurvivable event. What is a myth is anybody saying an above-ground shelter in Jarrell would've been 100% safe.
@@Dallas1722 lmao Ironically enough there was a guy in double creek that built one and survived Jarrell 👀
Whatever gave him that idea saved his life
I lived n Austin at the time. Work let out early in my office due to the weather emergency and upon driving home, I was stunned by the eerie yellow sky 🌌 and array of mamamtus clouds. ☁️ it was truly frightening what was going on, hearing about the massive tornado 🌪️ over the radio as it happened I couldn’t wait to get home to my dog. 🐩
Did that sign read, early 1900s when the tornado hit?
When the town was founded, probably.
What do you mean by "the last F5 to hit" ? I'm confused because there has been F5s since Jarrell's. You mean the last F5 to hit specifically the town of Jarrell ?
Last F5 to hit the state of Texas :) the wording confused me too
Interestingly enough ... it was the fourth-to-final tornado to be rated F5. Bridgecreek-Moore was the final F5 ever. Everything after that (starting with Greensburg) was EF5.
It's the last F5 to hit Texas as rated on the old scale.
Because the Fujita scale was changed and tornadoes are now on the EF scale instead of the older F scale. This tornado made meteorologists view everything differently, the damage was off the charts.
What happens when a storm like that slows down to 5 mph. This was one of those tornadoes where people should have gotten their cars and left.. That's usually the wrong thing to do
I am not from america but its all our news stations were broadcasting I'm from Canada and i remember it being on our news channel, a little bit and since then i been scared shitless of tornadoes
It destroyed that town
God bless all who suffered through this, and those who didn't survive. God is ALWAYS WITH US; HERE and in the HEREAFTER ❤
As soon as she said it went all calm and quiet thats when you know its about to go down and get really real
this story should have way more likes 👇
I really don't understand why houses built in areas that get a lot of tornadoes aren't built to a higher standard. Or at the very least have a tornado shelter built in the floor. It really should be a standard for them... If it was built into the house when it was built. The cost wouldn't be THAT much extra...
"it was sunny." Yeah! That's one of the problems.
I hope that they built more underground shelters
Great documentary, but the sound engineer pooped the bed. Was constantly chasing the varying volume across different segments and interviews.
Unbelievable
This should be a warning to storm chasers that are coming out by the hundreds jockeying to get footage. There are tour vans taking people out there, even some have their kids with them.
The danger they are posing to those trying to get away from and their distracted driving tactics are mind blowing to me. I get these are back dirt roads, but when you have families trying to flee as the number of storm chasers continues to grow like it is now is a precursor for a disaster that could be avoided if law enforcement put an end to these chases.
Right now any one who can get access to a car can go chasing.
While there are several knowledgeable chasers who can read the weather, there are twice the number who have no idea what they are getting themselves into.
This storm clearly shows what it can do to a vehicle since many were never found and there are way too many out there believing that if it's slow they can get out in time.
It needs to be addressed before it ends lives.
Another reason to NOT live in Texas...
Very good video.
Jarrell and Joplin are probably the most sinister tornadoes I've ever heard of. They were both super strong, worst case scenarios that were relentless and unforgiving. Maybe they didn't have the "highest wind speed recorded", but the destruction and lives lost are in my mind, what would make the worst tornadoes. Yes, Moore was bad as well. Probably #3, but I feel like these 2 are just down right sinister. The Jarrell tornado almost seemed to target the sub division specifically and sat on it which is horrifying. Almost like it wouldn't leave until nothing was left. I would rank Jarrell second to Joplin though. The Joplin tornado was just so evil that it killed several even after it was over via mental and physical trauma and even infections from the debris which is insane.
What a brainless comment by Bush.
He probably spent hours practicing that line. SMH😒
As of June 10, 2024, there have been 964 confirmed twisters this year, although many of the ratings are considered preliminary until published in the National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) database.28/05/2024. I DON'T UNDERSTAND WHY THE SURPRISE OF A NATURAL CATASTROPHE HAPPENING IF THE AREA IS TOTALLY INTENDED FOR NATURAL CATASTROPHES IN THIS CASE TORNADO. I WOULDN'T CHOOSE TO LIVE IN THAT AREA LIKE BUT, THEY CHOSE AND THEY ALREADY KNEW THE POSSIBILITIES SO BE PREPARED.
😢
🙏🙏🙏
WOW oh WOW😱😱😱😊
Joplin was horrific. Slow moving tornado.
Jarrell was another slow moving monster. Horrific .
While it is true humans can't do much against this much energy in the atmosphere above a population, there is something that can be done to at least save more lives. Both tragedies show politicians can do much better than they have been doing. Instead of all the bickering and politicking, why not just focus on giving us a better chance (even if it's just the slightest) of surviving and not having to bury loved ones?
My God
😔😔😔😔😔🙏
HOLD ON TIGHT😱