On October 13, 1999, an F-3 tornado hit my hometown of Circleville, Ohio. A squall line moving through the region spawned several tornadoes in Pickaway County, including the F-3 that hit town. The tornado touched down on the north side of town doing substantial damage to a barber shop and a masonry building. A furniture store was also damaged with a hole in its roof where it was reported that items from inside the store were sucked out. Damage to nearby buildings also occurred as the tornado moved east across the north-central part of town.
Living in Circleville for 13 years, my experiences with severe weather were very limited. Growing up, I had been exposed to marginally severe hail and a rather impressive flood event that turned many of my neighborhood roads to rivers. However, tornadoes were something that seriously eluded me. Not counting my first chase in 1997, I had never seen a tornado and had only experienced the sirens going off for non-testing purposes once, so it wasn’t something I thought I would ever experience first-hand. There were stories of a tornado in the early 80s that hit the very north side of town doing damage to the 84 Lumber store off US-23. It was before my time in the state had begun, so it had happened before.
I moved from Circleville in April of 1998 where i began the next chapter of my life in Colorado. It would be a year and a half later when I would get a phone call from a friend back home while working a night shift at a Littleton Pizza Hut revealing to me the events of the day. Several more phone calls would roll in through the evening as details became clear, but it was immediately apparent the tornado’s path was very close to my old house.
Turns out, the damage path of the tornado was primarily along Fairlawn Drive, which is right across a soccer field from the street I lived on. I would walk across that field all the time to visit a friend whose house was severely damaged by the tornado. While I heard no stories from my neighbors, I read the reports from residents saying how two funnels converged into the tornado as it moved across the city.
The following day, NWS officials from Wilmington rated the tornado an F3 given the extensive damage to several houses on the north side of Fairlawn Drive. One home was deemed a complete loss, demolished, and later rebuilt.
It was a day of mixed feelings for me; I felt bad for the several friends and families who lost their homes to this tornado. On the other hand, I felt upset that I wasn’t there to be part of that event. Its strange how this felt to me at the time, but its a feeling I’ve since repeated upon missing a large number of close-to-Denver events in my time here. However, none of those compares to missing an event such as this that directly affected friends and family of the town I grew up with and call home.
Fortunately, the number of injuries was low and fairly minor. Most importantly, there were no fatalities as the warning was sufficient to allow for those in the path to take shelter. The setup of this event, namely the squall line it was embedded in, made this a difficult event to warn for. NWS officials did a good job of identifying the rotation embedded within and make for good warning on the storm.
BULLETIN – EAS ACTIVATION REQUESTED TORNADO WARNING NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE WILMINGTON OH 445 PM EDT WED OCT 13 1999 THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN WILMINGTON HAS ISSUED A * TORNADO WARNING FOR… PICKAWAY COUNTY IN CENTRAL OHIO. * UNTIL 550 PM EDT * AT 444 PM EDT… NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DOPPLER RADAR INDICATED A TORNADO 11 MILES WEST OF CIRCLEVILLE… MOVING EAST AT 50 MPH. * THE TORNADO IS EXPECTED TO BE NEAR… WILLIAMSPORT AT 447 PM EDT . CIRCLEVILLE AT 457 PM EDT . GO TO THE BASEMENT OR A SMALL INTERIOR ROOM ON THE LOWEST FLOOR! .END/JTD
PUBLIC INFORMATION STATEMENT NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE WILMINGTON OH 610 PM EDT THU OCT 14 1999 ...DAMAGE IN CIRCLEVILLE CONFIRMED AS TORNADIC... ...BRIEF TORNADO TOUCHDOWN CONFIRMED IN FAYETTE COUNTY... A STORM DAMAGE TEAM FROM THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE HAS REPORTED THAT THE DAMAGE DONE IN CIRCLEVILLE WAS CAUSED BY AN F3 TORNADO. AN F3 TORNADO HAS WIND SPEEDS OF 158 TO 206 MPH. THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION IS ON THE TORNADO AND ITS ASSOCIATED DAMAGE. THE PATH OF THE TORNADO WAS THREE AND A HALF MILES LONG... STARTING A MILE AND A HALF WEST OF CIRCLEVILLE AND ENDING IN THE EXTREME NORTHEAST SECTION OF THE TOWN. THE PATH WIDTH WAS GENERALLY ONE SIXTEENTH OF A MILE AND LOCALLY REACHED ONE QUARTER OF A MILE IN THE NORTHEAST SECTION OF CIRCLEVILLE. THE FIRST DAMAGE IN PICKAWAY COUNTY OCCURRED ONE AND A HALF MILES WEST OF CIRCLEVILLE, WHERE A SMALL SHED WAS PULLED OFF THE FOUNDATION. ACROSS HIGHWAY 22 THERE WAS DAMAGE TO A TALL CONSTRUCTION BUILDING. IT WAS CONCRETE BLOCK WITH AN ALUMINUM ROOF. THE WEST END OF THE BUILDING WAS DESTROYED AND SPREAD EAST NORTHEAST ONE QUARTER OF A MILE ACROSS A FIELD. THE TORNADO LIFTED...WITH THE NEXT TOUCHDOWN OCCURRING IN THE NORTH CENTRAL SECTION OF CIRCLEVILLE. IN THIS AREA, A BARBER SHOP WAS DESTROYED ALONG WITH A MASONRY BUILDING. THE MALL HAD WINDOWS BLOWN OUT, A BIG HOLE IN THE ROOF WHERE FURNITURE WAS PULLED THROUGH AND HAS STILL NOT BEEN LOCATED. A LARGE ELECTRICAL SIGN WEIGHING SEVERAL HUNDRED POUNDS WAS PULLED FROM ITS FOUNDATION AND BLOWN TWENTY FEET TO THE SOUTH. ALSO, A SEMI-TRACTOR TRAILER WAS PARKED FACING WEST. THE TRUCK WEIGHT WAS 35,000 TO 38,000 POUNDS. THIS VEHICLE WAS BLOWN ON IT'S SIDE AND DRAGGED TEN FEET, UNTIL IT FACED THE WEST SOUTHWEST. NEXT, A HOUSING AREA IN THE NORTHEAST PART OF THE TOWN HAD SEVERAL HOMES DESTROYED. TREES WERE TORN FROM THEIR TRUNKS AND CARPORTS TORN OFF HOUSES. THREE OF THE HOMES HAD ROOFS LIFTED AND EITHER DROPPED BACK DOWN OR TWISTED. ONE GARAGE WAS LIFTED AND MOVED ABOUT TEN FEET. ANOTHER COLLAPSED ON A CAR. SEVERAL TREES WERE TWISTED AND BROKEN OFF AT THE TRUNK. THERE WERE NUMEROUS TREES WITH LIMBS TWISTED IN ALL DIRECTIONS. SIMILAR DAMAGE WAS FOUND EAST NORTHEAST OF THE HOUSING AREA. SEVERAL PEOPLE INTERVIEWED BY THE TEAM HAD MANY DESCRIPTIONS OF THE NOISE ACCOMPANYING THE STORMS. THEY RANGED FROM A HIGH PITCHED SOUND FOR A FEW SECONDS TO, "IT SOUNDED LIKE I WAS BETWEEN TWO FREIGHT TRAINS." ONE INDIVIDUAL DESCRIBED SEEING TWO FUNNEL CLOUDS COLLIDING TOGETHER JUST TO THE WEST OF THE HOUSING AREA AND DROPPING INTO THE HOUSING AREA. IN EASTERN FAYETTE COUNTY ANOTHER TORNADO HAD TWO BRIEF TOUCH DOWNS. ONE WAS IN THE TOWN OF BLOOMINGBURG, WHERE A MOBILE HOME WAS BLOWN OVER AND SEVERAL UTILITY POLES WERE DOWNED. THE NEXT TOUCH DOWN OCCURRED IN THE TOWN OF PANCOASTBURG, 7 MILES TO THE EAST-NORTHEAST OF BLOOMINGBURG. HERE THE DAMAGE WAS LIGHT AS TWO PONTOON BOATS WERE FLIPPED AND DESTROYED. THIS TORNADO WAS CLASSIFIED AS AN F0 TORNADO. $$ HAYDU/GALLAGHER
