Experienced 110-mph winds?

[Josephine96]

A borderline F 4 tornado in 1998 with winds well over 200 mph blew through here in 1998.. those were some of the scariest moments of my life to say the least..

I still have a scar on my right kneecap from when I had just got my sister into our "safe room". The window in her room blew out and a shard of glass slammed right into my knee..

The howl and that rumble had got to have been the most deafening sound..

[Normandy]

A small tornado had the pine forest in my backyard bent over horizontally (nearly the tips touching the ground). A couple went down, and the door in my house was on the verge of getting sucked off. Dont now if the winds were 110, but I assume they were close.

[PTPatrick]

I saw cat 3 gusts in georges in Pascagoula, MS...And 120ish in Elena in Pascagoula in 85...and yall are right, it aint nothing to play with. Personally, people talk about making a cat 6...but I cant really even see the need of a cat 5...above 4 its just BAD

[HurricaneQueen]

Cat 4, Hurricane Luis in St. Maarten on 9/5/95. A truly terrifying experience. Stuff was flying through the air that wasn't ever meant to be airborne. We could hear houses ripping apart around us during the night and saw roofs peeling off in the daylight hours. It was a very long event as he was huge and was only moving 4-6 mph.

The aftermath defies description. Do I ever want to go through that again? NO WAY

I wrote a 22 page paper about our experiences from start to finish (used a tape recorder for about 10 days leading up, during and after to record our observations, etc.). About once a year, I pull it out and read it again and it never fails to bring back the terrible memories.

Lynn

[nequad]

Gloria 1985. Was 12 yo.

Gloria was CAT 3 as her eye scraped the Outer Banks from Hatteras to Nags Head during the middle of the night. Can vividly remember that night and thinking the house was going to blow away. Thankfully it did not.
Not sure of the exact winds recorded that night, but know for sure Gloria was a CAT 3 when she made landfall. I'll see if I can dig up the official winds recorded that night.



Emily 1993 20 yo

I assume most of you can remember Emily. The eye wall raked Hatteras Island as a CAT 3. Experienced the eye wall for several hours. Max winds recorded on Hatteras Island were 115 mph with higher gusts. The Pamlico sound poured over the Island...casuing some of the worst sound side flooding ever seen on Hatteras Island.



Isabel 2003

Winds were not 110 or greater...although I believe there were some gusts recorded along the Banks near 110...but sustained winds at the peak of the storm at my house were 90-100. However....Izzy brought a long period of hurricane force winds, and an even longer period(some 24 hours worth) of storm force winds.

[Recurve]

Heavens no.

110 mph sustained wind would be horrible. Only people I know whose houses were destroyed in Andrew probably went through that.

Katrina gusting to 74 here was enough to convince me that TS winds are all I ever want to directly experience, unless I'm in a concrete bunker.

[CharleySurvivor]

Yep, smack on with Charley last year.

[cjrciadt]

Nope only 85mph sustained with close 100mph gusts on the second floor of a 2 story building.

[gpickett00]

absolutely right

[sfwx]

Frances and Jeanne also. I have a wood frame house and it stood up like a real trooper. The house at the peak of Frances seemed liked it was breathing in and out. The toilets were making a sucking noise and the howling noises were incredible. I made some neccessary adjustments for Jeanne and the noises diminished except for the neighbors roof which slammed against my house one shingle at a time. I did venture out with a video camera (FOOLISH!!) It was very scary. I would stay again.

Eric

[jhamps10]

Tax day 1998. Torando, we had winds of 115 at my house, and we were lucky, some parts of town had winds up to 155.

[timNms]

According to "The Radionian" (newspaper of local junior college) the campus had sustained winds of 110 with gusts to 130 during Katrina. The college is about 20 miles east of me. I'm not sure where they got the info from but I do know it was quite breezy here for several hours prior to the eyewall moving over us. Once we got into the eyewall, the winds were horrific!

[tndefender]

Anyone who was in Memphis on July 22, 2003, probably did. A massive storm system, soon dubbed "Hurricane Elvis," swept across the Midsouth and produced straight-line winds in the city in excess of 100 mph.


http://www.mscema.org/index.php?name=co ... m=5&pos=48[/img]

[mijakamaj]

I had to look back and see what the official wind speeds were for Hugo and Fran as they were the worst storms I've ever been in. I was surprised to see Fran's speeds were only 70mph or so (gusts a little higher) here inland and I thought it was the most horrible thing to listen to THOSE winds for hours in the middle of the night. I cannot imagine going through anything worse.

[mdlemin]

A f2 twister that was a little shy of becoming an f3 and was an f3 later on. The vehicle stayed at where it was some how or some way. It came up all of a sudden when I was in the woods. Definitely scary as a huge 50 foot tree almost fell on me.

[NoceoTotus]

Lived through the tornadoes in Omaha during the 70's, straight-line wind storms in the 80's (also in midwest), a hurricane in Texas and now several tropical storms and hurricanes down here in Florida... Yeah, I have experienced winds of this severity before. If you really want to experience high winds in relative safety, I would have to say that the best place to go is the tall dorm building at the university of colorado. If you get up to the top floor there is a game we would all play called "surfing the tables"... It is where we would get drunk during the winds that came off the foothils and stood on top of tables as the towers swayed back and forth in 100+ mph winds. Needless to say, it was rare that anyone opened a window up there.

[Derek Ortt]

Gloria was NOT a 3 anywhere in the EC based upon wind speed. 90KT at Hatteras is the official intensity, and only about 70KT was observed on land.

[mtm4319]

I haven't. The closest I've been is probably 75mph or so in Katrina. We evacuated for Ivan, and Dennis/Opal/Georges/Danny didn't give us hurricane-force (Erin might not have either). Haven't been through a tornado either.

[tsunamii]

Hurricane Celia 1970 when I was a child visiting my grandparents. I've been through others but that one caused me nightmares for years. There wasn't anything left when it was over & it took a few extra days for my parents to be able to get me. I'll never believe that it was only a cat 3. I've read where the winds were 160-180 in gusts caused by microbursts or something. I only know that it sounded like a freight train.

[nccoastalgirl]

The worse hurricane I have experienced is Hurricane Fran which hit the NC coast about 40 miles south of me in 1996. The eye passed very close by my house. I believe winds in my area were around 120-125 mph. It came ashore at night, and the howling noise for about 8 hours was one of the most eery things I have every heard. Damage to our home was limited to the roof, siding and trees down in our yard. Alot of mobile homes, barns & sheds, and signs in our area were destroyed. Flooding was significant and damaging in areas that are usually prone to flooding. Power was out in my area from 3-14 days. Grocery stores, etc. were closed for 2-3 days. Barrier islands were literally almost wiped out, and some really stupid people had horror stories to tell of riding out the storm at the beach. You could see the tree damage from this storm for many years after. I would stay again in a well-built home or building that is not in any danger of flooding for a Cat 3 or lower, but never for a Cat 4 or 5. I would not relish the idea of having to ride out another Cat 3. They are most definitely not fun and can be very damaging.