The awesome power of mother nature

I have mentioned a couple of times that last Saturday the South and East USA got hit by some mighty big storms which yielded a huge amount of Tornado's, North Carolina had twice as many in that 1 day than it normally does in 1 year, The TV was on as it was happening and we tracked the main storms in our area by watching the Doppler radar on my laptop, The biggest storm in our area come up highway 1 and hit South Raleigh dropping a tornado there then lifting and going up the main strip of capital boulevard before continuing up highway one where it again touched down and caused all kinds of devastation right up to the coast and into Virginia, The storm had a huge amount of power behind it which is unknown in this area, We knew how lucky we were by the scenes on the TV, Yesterday (Wednesday) we offered a school in the Southern Raleigh area our help to get the kids back in a safe environment, Its only 10 miles or so as the crow fly's from where we live, Its quite a poor neighborhood and that seems to always be where the most damage is done, There were lots of people turned out to help and when things where getting sorted i was told that a few streets away the real nightmare was, I popped down for a look and boy was i shocked, In just a few streets the full impact came to light as nearly every house in that small area was damaged, Not just a few fences or shingles removed but completely totaled, The tornado that came through was a F3 so winds over 130mph, This is a heavily populated area and its incredible when you see the damage that nobody there lost their lives, A lot of the cleanup was well under way with trees already cut up or in the process of being cut and removed but it still looked awful and i cant imagine how scary it must have been when all those trees started to crash down, The older houses seem to have big trees surrounding and very close to them, I think its to give shade and keep out the direct summer sun and help cool the house and this was the problem last Saturday as most trees that fell or were snapped off hit a house, Lots of tree fellers in the area clearing the way so that the power guys can get in an get these people some electricity-the ones in livable homes anyways

 Damage to local stores

 Local Cisco employees helping out at the school

All images taken with a Nikon D7000 and 24-70 which is a great walk around kit, Its very important for a photographer to carefully document these scenes of devastation as although its now yesterdays news for the TV companies, For the people affected its a life changer that will go on for some time

Dave

Tornado images

Most of the south USA was hit by severe weather last weekend-here are some images showing the devastation left behind,
I live in Raleigh North Carolina and there are images in there from just a few miles of my house

Dave

Wild Weather update

The weather here in NC on Saturday was a lot worse than i realized with over 60 tornado's touching down and over 20 dead, Very unusual for NC as its such a densely forested area the tornado's do not usually get very powerful unlike the mid west which is flat and open, Amazing that on Sunday it was 70 degrees with clear skies and calm as if nothing had happened, Today is a clear up day in the area as many people do not have power and many trees are down and blocking roads, Iguess it shows just how lucky we really were to get away with absolutely no damage at all

Dave

Wild Weather

Get some hot/warm air and add a cold front mixed together with wind and you have all the ingredients for severe storms and tornados and thats exactly what happened here yesterday, We watched on the Doppler radar on both TV and my laptop as storms came across central and eastern North Carolina and listened as reports of tornado's touching down and damage to buildings and of course the trailer parks that seem to get hit more than any other building, We watched a huge storm come across and headed straight towards our area, As it crossed south east Raleigh it dropped a tornado which did some damage, the tornado did not touch down for long and the storm passed over us dropping a huge amount of rain and then 10 minutes later it dropped another tornado which traveled for some considerable distance up highway 1 towards louisburg, I am not sure how many tornados dropped over NC yesterday but i am sure it was more than 6 which for here is very rare, So we survived as did everybody else, I have not heard of any fatalities but there was a lot of damage, The tornados seemed to be rain wrapped so no chance of chasing them and hoping for pictures, Reports of golf ball sized hail keeps you away as well, Nature at its wildest right outside my window
Dave