March 29, 1991: Weak Tornadoes Kill Too

This story is for tomorrow…but I thought I would post it as an important lesson that even weak tornadoes can be deadly.

Hoyt Watts awakened around 5:35 a.m. on the morning of March 29, 1991 in his home on Highway 21 in Mumford in Talladega County, Alabama. It was storming outside. Storming bad. The wind was roaring loudly and lightning was flashing as thunder sounded continuously. He looked out the window and could not believe his eyes. A mobile home was flying through the air. Airborne. Sixty or seventy feet in the air. As he watched in shock, the trailer home exploded in midair.

It was the mobile home of his son Ronnie. He dressed frantically and rushed to search for his son and his family. Ronnie’s wife Lisa and their sons has been at home.
They found Lisa dead, blown about 75 yards, with her one of the children in her arms. Over a quarter of a mile away, they found Ronnie’s body with the remains of the mobile home. The other son was critically injured, but died later.

How could it have happened? Ronnie knew that mobile homes were vulnerable to high winds. He had taken extra care to tie down their home with steel straps, as was the recommendation. But the tornado snapped those straps and sent the trailer flying like a crumpled ball of aluminum foil.

Four people died in this one home. A fifth person died in another mobile home.

When the National Weather Service did the storm survey, it was hard to imagine this would turn out to be the deadliest tornado of the year in Alabama. The tornado was only on the ground for one mile and had a path width of just 300 feet. But it found eight mobile homes with deadly accuracy. In addition to the five fatalities, there were 13 injuries. Perhaps the most amazing fact was that the tornado only attained an F1 ranking.

This serves as a powerful reminder that even small, weak tornadoes can kill…

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