Sioux Falls, SD Tornado

Severe weather and tornadoes do not mix well with homes on wheels such as trailer parks or RV parks in our case. On Tuesday of this week, the weather service was predicting severe thunderstorms, but we have been through many while in our RV. Although the storm on Tuesday was much more than I have ever experienced and hope to never experience again! We are safe and here is a quick update.

The storm was pretty severe on Tuesday evening as I turned in at about 9:30pm. By 11:30pm, the straight line storm winds were at 90 mph and it felt like the coach was about to fly with some hard rocking.

At 11:45pm, the Weatherbug now had issued four different warnings including a tornado warning and said to take immediate action to a safe location. In fact, the iPhone app even sound an alert just like the Amber Alerts. What was strange was that we heard no tornado sirens in the city.

It was time to go! Except the lightning was constant. Really, there was no break in the thunder and lightning. And the wind sounded like two freight trains drag racing. Do we risk our safety by running to the truck or stay inside? Then it got worse at 12 midnight and we left.

Struggling against the wind, and a foot of standing water, we jumped into the Ford diesel F-350 and took off looking for a storm shelter. Me driving trying to avoid the deep flooded streets and flying lawn chairs and Pat looking for an open shelter on her phone.

We saw large tree branches and entire trees down while we were driving south. Something should have rung a bell in my head that damage was more severe as we drove south. We found out later that the tornado touched down on the southside of the city and we were heading straight to it!

There was no open shelter. Crud! Our RV park is on the north side of Sioux Falls, so I headed south into the city, until we found an all-night diner called the Frying Pan. Similar to Denny’s like we have back east. I had the pancakes and fried egg special. Quite good, but at 1:00am, it was very unusual for us. We left at about 2:30am for home and I finally got to sleep at 3:30am. Boy, what a night!

Other people came into the Frying Pan saying that power lines were down and they could not get home. There were only maybe ten other people in the place including the staff.

There was damage to 37 buildings including a hospital, but no fatalities or serious injuries. The Sioux Falls area had 6-8 inches of rain over the two days and there was an ongoing flash flood warning. Link to news report ==>>LINK

We also found out the next day that the city-wide Sioux Falls alert sirens did not work as planned. They only worked in one small area. Good thing for our WeatherBug phone app!

I was able to inspect the RV the next day in some daylight. It looked like we only had some damage to the awning like slide topper on the port side of the coach. Another project for this winter in Florida.

Just another little inconvenience to this nomadic life on the road. We continue to feel blessed to have good health and are able to experience this great country of ours. Take care and God Bless.