F3 Tornado in Barranquilla

[Montrealer]

Greetings again.

Just to let you know that there was a F3 tornado today in Barranquilla.  It stretched approximately from calle 80 to calle 38B the majority of the damage.  The damage was really bad in certain areas, but it could have been alot worse.  I did manage to take a few pictures of it from my window from a distance, and a reporter is purchasing them for use with the news programs, mostly regional.

Just thought I would let you know in case those that have wives/girlfriends or family in laws here.

[Houndog]

Post the pics if you still have them!

HD

ps: How are things going for you otherwise?

[sean126]

Thanks Monty.  I have friends and In-laws there.

[Montrealer]

Here's some of the pics I took that show the development of the cyclone.

Starting:


Growing:


At full power (I believe):

[Montrealer]

Hound,
Things are going great here.  I finally found an apt last weekend.  It is in a Strata 6 (I mistakenly said strata 7 before, my bad).  A nice furnished 2 bedroom a block away from Buenavista mall.

The wife and I are doing great.  She keeps me busy, as I do her.  Got my net a few days ago, since I had to wait for a cable tech guy to come.  It's decent speed, so I'm happy that I can still operate my business from here.

Mostly just getting settled in and spending time with wifey and in-laws a bit.  Other than that, just relaxing costeno style, lol.

[fathertime]

I did not realize how powerful the storm was until i drove into some of effected area to see my lady. The power was out for many, many hours and when we left it still was, around 8pm. Kinda screwed up my plans but I heard some people lost their lives in the freak occurance.

fathertime

[Montrealer]

My power blinked on and off a couple of times, mostly due to surges I think.  My parent-in-laws house lost power for about 90 minutes or so too.  Some parts were hit pretty hard and they may still be out of power today.  I know some buildings were levelled, and alot of power lines and trees were ripped up too.  I haven't stepped out yet to pick up the Heraldo to see the report about the tornado yet, but I checked out Caracol Radio last night and they said they were believing some deaths did occur, but none had actually been confirmed.  Several 100 people were injured, but they didn't say the gravity of most of the injuries.

The good news is that Soledad didn't get the worst of it like they usually do.  Soledad is the poorest area of Barranquilla (actually a suburb of it) and usually due to their location they get hit alot by storms and are often rebuilding.

I'll keep you posted with any other developments, or if any one knows anything else...

[EbonyPrince]

Great pics Monty.  I would of never guessed that a tornado could strike Colombia.  I guess that can happen anywhere, but I always thought that it was too hot for anything to form there.

Congrats on getting established in BAQ.  I plan to be there in November.  I will look you up.

[jediknight]

my wifes younger sister was in school and in the middle of it when it happened, she told me that it was really scarey. my suegra told me that they've experienced severe storms before but nothing of this magnitud. schools in the affected area will be closed for a few days and unfortunatley there were people who took advantage of the power outages with acts of looting.
JK

[lapentier]

Those pictures are interesting--not normally the location I would expect to see such a strong storm.  In Kansas, we are used to periodically seeing these storms and hearing the sirens. 

The teacher in me has to ask a couple of questions:  (1) How did the locals percieve this?  Did it register with them at what they were looking?  (2) Was there any type of public warning such as announcements on the radio or sirens, etc.?

My apologies to everyone for being off-topic, but I am curious.

Regards,

Mark

[Montrealer]

Lapentier,
No sirens or nothing that I know about.

As for the locals knowing what they were dealing with, there have been tornados here in the past, from what I've read, but this is one of the stronger ones from what I understand.

Clean-up is happening fast.  I think one of the advantages that Colombia has with dealing with natural disasters, is that the building supplies and engineering are so dirt cheap and poor quality compared to NA standards.

[lapentier]

I appreciate the report.  The pictures you took were really interesting; not the usual backdrop I expect for this type of a storm.  To me, tornados in an urban area are always a scary sight.

True, an F3 is not the a very powerful storm compared to those hitting Oklahoma in the F5.  However, I am guessing this is one of the most powerful they have seen in Baranquilla.  An F3 is a powerful, dangerous storm in its own right.  I guess if your lady misses events such as this, you can always bring her back to one of the prairie provinces...  My wife's relatives moving in from the Philippines have been very happy with their new homes in Alberta.

Best wishes to you in your quest for happiness in Colombia.

Mark

[clone927]

My Baqn girlfriend told me about this. I didn't think tornado happen down there. I guess I was wrong. Good Pics.

[fuzzyuno]

 Montrealer

   That tornado actually hit my wife's school she worked at. I did not hear how bad the damage was but the way she was talking there was kids there when it hit.

[Montrealer]

There was a school that was hit pretty hard, but it's not in the media anymore so I can't recall the name, but yes there were kids inside.  From what I remember, none were seriously hurt, but the school had to shut down indefinately.  Although it's been a while, I don't know if that verdict has changed.