Olive Branch Storm Blogging

My camera battery died before I got any pictures, but let me say that I was incorrect in my previous post, when I said I didn't think there had been a tornado in Olive Branch. There most definitely was.

It appears to have touched down somewhere north of Olive Branch City Park, where it hit a duplex development (1) pretty hard. I saw roofs blown off and windows shattered, and a woman I talked to who was working a roadside fruit stand in the city library parking lot said one house there was completely destroyed. It then took part of the roof of a city building (2), not sure which, before passing just over the driver's license station. I saw a couch in a drainage ditch beside the road (3). It then crossed the road into the southern end of old town Olive Branch, where it smashed (4) and uprooted numerous trees (5).

Now it gets strange because either the tornado reversed direction, or there was a second tornado, because there appears to be an entirely different storm track south of the first one, as shown on this map. Google maps is not up to date, as the duplex development and the city building aren't on this map.

I spoke to my former real estate agent today, and she said that there was a tractor trailer turned over by the tornado on 78 near the weigh station (6). Further east, there is a BBQ restaurant (7) whose brick walls were damaged, while the traffic lights were stripped from the lines, and there are several snapped power poles, at the corner of Cockrum and Sandidge. Beyond that, the roof was damaged on a church (8), and behind the church a house that looks like it was hit by Thor swinging a 4 iron, as there is an enormous divet right through the middle of the house.

On a personal level, this house is two houses north of a house we almost bought two years ago. We loved that house and really wanted it, but we couldn't sell our own house. From the road it looked like all the trees had been blown down in the backyard, so now I'm rather glad it didn't work out.

UPDATE: I think I've got it figured out now. If you look on the map between city park and the weigh station, there appears to be a trailer park. The tornado took two shots at that trailer park and missed both times. The residents are probably breathing a big sigh of relief right about now.