Greensburg Tornado Damage Photos
On March 23, a rare early-season EF-2 tornado touched down east of PIttsburgh, Pennsylvania (I posted some impressive radar images of the storm). It was the first tornado to hit Westmoreland County in five years. Heavy damage was done at the Hempfield High School and in the Fort Allen neighborhood. On March 25, on my way to see the Tornado Alley movie in Pittsburgh, Local storm chaser Ron "R-Factor" Shawley and I stopped by to look at the damage. Ron took many of the photos below (click to enlarge).
Fort Allen, a neighborhood outside of Greensburg (map) was at the end of the tornado's path, and almost all the damage photos I took were between the high school and the end of the twister's track.
Due to scrap metal thieves, the neighborhood and school were still closed off to the public...
...but EMA Director Dan Stevens was kind enough to take us on a walking and driving tour or the damage.
People were in pretty good spirits (that's me on the left and Dan on the right in the photo below); no one was killed or injured by the storm, and much damage had been cleaned up. More than a hundred volunteers were helping people clean up the rest.
The most damaged house was this one, with windows broken out and no roof at all (see also NWS photos below).
Dan drove us over to the Hempfield Senior High School to look at the damage there. The most impressive damage, hands down, was this scoreboard, twisted and flattened by the twister. It was made of what Dan described as "8-inch steel I-beams." This alone pointed to very extreme winds. Amazingly, students were running from thei field
The stadium building surrounding the field had a walkway ceiling torn down, and Dan pointed out that the crack in the roof indicated the roof had been lifted up and dropped back down, so the lack of major damage was deceiving.
You can view additional photos from Ron and myself by clicking on the thumbnails below.
The NWS from Pittsburgh has an excellent web page about the tornado, including a Google Map of the track and damage details, more radars, and also these photos which show what the damage looked like before the cleanup began. Remember that we also have a video showing the damage early on and interviews with the residents.
