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  1. #1
    Registered User Tennessee Viking's Avatar
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    Default Hiker finds storm remnants atop Whitetop Mountain

    Hiker finds storm remnants atop Whitetop Mountain
    http://www2.tricities.com/news/2011/...in-ar-1043635/

    Credit: Doug Ogle

    Ron Hubbard of Roaring Gap, N.C. inspects a piece of aluminum that was found along a ridge on Whitetop Mountain.

    By JOE TENNIS
    Published: May 17, 2011
    » 1 Comment | Post a Comment
    WHITETOP, Va. --

    For Doug Ogle, it’s common to find a forest of spruce and a few ferns along the ridges of Whitetop Mountain.

    Ogle, 64, just might know Whitetop Mountain better than anyone, having studied the mile-high peak while teaching biology for 30 years at Virginia Highlands Community College.

    The Saltville, Va., resident also recently spoke on “The Great White Topp’d Mountain” during the Mount Rogers Naturalist Rally in Konnarock, Va.

    But, last week, while walking with friend Ron Hubbard of Roaring Gap, N.C., Ogle found something he had never seen in nearly 60 years of exploring Whitetop: a full-sized, 4-by-12-foot, fresh piece of aluminum roofing, laying in the middle of the spruce forest.

    “I was taken aback for a minute until I realized it was probably removed from a building in Chilhowie or Glade and dropped at Whitetop at least six air miles away,” said Ogle, a resident of Saltville, Va.

    “It was a really interesting piece of roofing,” Ogle said. “It was real high quality. I just about fell over. It looked like a piece of a car.”

    The roofing lay along the Grayson-Smyth county line, about a half-mile from the Appalachian Trail – and at least a mile from any road.

    Presumably, the aluminum came from the tornados that hit the region April 28, Ogle figured.

    Hubbard, a retired meteorologist for the Federal Aviation Administration, told Ogle that the piece of roofing would have likely been sucked up 20,000 feet into the recent tornado and then dropped many miles away – at Whitetop.

    “It would have gone straight up and then forced out at the top,” Ogle said. “Powerful storm, to say the least.”

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  2. #2
    Registered User Old Hiker's Avatar
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    Any ruby slippers sticking out? Just askin'.

    The power of nature is awe-inspiring.
    Old Hiker
    AT Hike 2012 - 497 Miles of 2184
    AT Thru Hiker - 29 FEB - 03 OCT 2016 2189.1 miles
    Just because my teeth are showing, does NOT mean I'm smiling.
    Hányszor lennél inkább máshol?

  3. #3
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    I was puzzled by a refrigerator I found in a remote wooded area in Green Hill Park in Worcester, Mass. I wasn't surprised by someone dumping in the park, but I couldn't figure out how anybody could have gotten it to that spot without a helicopter. I was told by long time residents that it was blown there by the 1953 Worcester tornado -- 94 fatalities, 1 mile in diameter and traveled 46 miles. As near as I can tell, the debris was about a mile from the path of the tornado.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flint%E...cester_tornado

  4. #4
    Registered User Carl in FL's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Old Hiker View Post

    Any ruby slippers sticking out? Just askin'.

    That's probably the best line I'll see all day long.

  5. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by Snowleopard View Post
    I was puzzled by a refrigerator I found in a remote wooded area in Green Hill Park in Worcester, Mass. I wasn't surprised by someone dumping in the park, but I couldn't figure out how anybody could have gotten it to that spot without a helicopter. I was told by long time residents that it was blown there by the 1953 Worcester tornado -- 94 fatalities, 1 mile in diameter and traveled 46 miles. As near as I can tell, the debris was about a mile from the path of the tornado.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flint%E...cester_tornado
    Wow, interesting, I'd never heard of it.
    That was a massive tornado for those parts.

  6. #6

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    I know someone whose house was destroyed by a tornado...she had her wedding dress in a box in the attic with her name on it...somebody found it in their front yard the next morning 50 miles away and returned it to her.

  7. #7

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    Quote Originally Posted by Deb View Post
    Wow, interesting, I'd never heard of it.
    That was a massive tornado for those parts.

    That's the understatement of the week. We don't get tornados, EVER. The fact that we even had one at all was shocking to start with, and then the fact that in the same horrible storm we had at least 20 across the region. Needless to say, we're still recovering.

    I do have to say, After our electricity had gone off and after the hail had crashed through our neighbors windshields, I looked out my porch window to the Holston mountains and worried about any hikers that might have been on the trail that night.

  8. #8

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    I drove thru Glade Spring north out of Damascus the day before yesterday, and needless to say, I was SHOCKED at the amount of damage the tornadoes did to this little town. I have never seen tornado damage first hand here in VA--it was saddening to see the town such a wreck, and knowing that three people had lost their lives, my heart just goes out the them & their community.

    I surveyed this damage about three weeks after the fact, and according to my friend who works in Saltville, he drove down 81 the day after is happened, and he said it was a total mess, and that they've been steadily cleaning it up since then.

  9. #9
    Registered User LoneRidgeRunner's Avatar
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    I have seen the mess left by a quarter mile wide ef4 tornado near Toluca, NC about 10 or 15 miles from where I live in 1989 after a week of cleanup efforts and the remaining mess was unbelievable. Tornadoes are some serious storms to say the least..

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