Tornado

I had a pretty exciting night on Wednesday!  After a normal work day, I went to church in the evening and was back at the base settling in for the evening.  I turned on the TV and they mentioned there were severe weather warnings for Memphis (about three hours away).  I didn't think too much of it.  As the evening wore on the wind started to pick up and it started to rain.  By 10:00 pm the wind was howling, lighting was flashing, and it was pouring rain.  I laid down on my bed with the blinds open and was enjoying watching the lighting.  At about 10:30, right as I was starting to fall asleep someone pounded on my door and yelled that the boat had broken loose!  I threw on my shoes, grabbed a rain coat, and took off running down to the boat.  By the time I got down there it was about 25 yards off shore.  I dove in and swam out to it.  As soon as I pulled myself on board I set our emergency anchors and got the boat stopped.  Within a few minutes other crew members were starting to arrive and soon both of our chiefs were there.  They drove up to our shop, pulled out our canoe and soon had several crew members on board.  After doing several tests to check for damage, we lit off the engines, pulled up the anchors and moved the boat back into place.  After getting the boat secured we began surveying the damage on shore.  After looking at that there was little doubt in our mind that a tornado had come through!  

    Now for a bit of background.  Our standard mooring configuration is to have a half inch steel cable running from a winch on the bow to a piling to keep us from drifting back.  We then lower both of our spuds (big metal beams with a pointed end) into the mud and use 2 standard 2 inch mooring lines to tie off to the pilings.  

    When we are in port we receive electricity through a power line that is mounted on top of one of the pilings we moor up to.  When we get underway, we coil the power cable up and use a winch mounted on the top of the piling to pull it up and and store it on top.  I am the qualified climber on board that puts on a harness and climbs to the top of the piling and operates the winch.  

The tornado snapped the half inch steel cable off the bow, drug the spuds through the mud, broke one of the mooring lines, and stretched out the other one.  The entire handrail on top of the piling was torn out and was hanging precariously and the winch and windsock were torn out and dropped to the ground 60 feet below.  All of these were anchored in concrete and were torn out like it was nothing.  When the boat broke loose it put strain on the power cable and broke the plug where it attaches to the boat.  This exposed the wires and created a dangerous situation with high voltage running through exposed wires in the middle of a rainstorm.  After securing power and assuring everything was safe we called it a night at around 1:00 am.  

After getting a few hours of sleep I was back on the boat to start cleaning it all up.  As the qualified climber I climbed up the piling to survey the damage.  Thankfully, other than the handrail and wench, there was no structural damage.  I tied a line to the precariously hanging handrail and carefully lowered it down.  I then spent most of the rest of the day helping fix the broken electrical plug on the boat and by the end of the day we had it fixed and power restored. 

    When I went into town later in the day it was very obvious where the tornado had come through.  There was a very clear line where telephone poles and trees were ripped out and thrown all over the place.

The hand rail hanging from the top of the piling after getting ripped out of the concrete it was anchored in.

Our windsock lying on the ground after getting ripped off the top of the piling.

Our winch lying on the ground after getting ripped out of the concrete it was anchored in on the top of the piling.

The broken plug were we attach the power cable to the boat and the exposed wires

The broken concrete where the winch was originally mounted

The hanging hand rail and winch lying on the ground.  View from the top of the piling.

A view of how the winch and handrail were mounted before the tornado came through.