Possible Tornado Rips through Downtown Atlanta

Possible Tornado Rips through Downtown Atlanta

news.yahoo.com

ATLANTA - A possible tornado ripped through downtown Atlanta on Friday night, smashing skyscraper windows, sucking furniture and luggage out of hotel rooms, crumbling part of an apartment building and rattling the rafters of two major sports arenas filled with basketball fans. At least 20 people were hurt.

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Possible Tornado? Any other possibilities? I am glad no one was killed. I believe it is rare for a tornado to strike a city, any meteorologists on board? I'm waiting for youtube videos.

Luggage sucked from the windows? Man that must have looked trippy.

"I thought it was a tornado or a terrorist attack," said Mississippi State guard Ben Hansbrough, whose team won 69-67 after an hourlong delay under a roof with at least two visible tears. A later game between Georgia and Kentucky was postponed.

AAC

news.yahoo.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

[edit on 15-3-2008 by AnAbsoluteCreation]

[edit on 15-3-2008 by AnAbsoluteCreation]

Here is a slideshow of the damage.

AAC

Is it odd that I heard about this here first rather than on the news and I live in Georgia? I go to a pretty big college here, where a lot of the students are from Atlanta and the suburbs. Most of them are back home in the Atlanta area because it's spring break for us. I fell asleep pretty early tonight and when I woke up I noticed I had a lot of missed calls from my friend who works at CNN. I didn't think much of it, because he is fairly annoying like that. Until I listened to the voicemail and hes blabbering on about destruction and debris and chairs being sucked out of the office. But it seems like everyone is ok and no fatalities are being reported as of now. It's going to be hell trying to pick my friend up from Hartsfield airport tomorrow though....

At the moment it's being described as a windstorm, but from damage reports does sound like a tornado.

Tornados can and do hit cities - indeed, 2 of the biggest in the UK in recent years did just that (Birmingham and London).

Edit: there was a supercell thunderstorm over Atlanta at the time. Site investigation likely at 7AM. Currently indications suggest damage consistent with an EF-2 tornado.

[edit on 15-3-2008 by Essan]

We had a storm do damage to downtown Indianapolis a couple of years ago. Some of the external wrapping on a skyscraper was sucked away from the main structure. Damage appeared to be that of a tornado just by the way the material was pulled away but it was called straight line winds. I never really did buy that much especially when there was a tornado report south and west of that location and the movement would have place that storm moving over downtown.

Whatever happened to downtown Atlanta seems worse. One witness said he saw the funnel when a transformer blew. I believe that was when it was forming and about to hit the dome. If this was a tornado it could have been much worse.

There is an existing ATS News thread found here:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Please add comments and opinions there.

Closed.