Rememebering Utica, April 20, 2004 9 dead Options

[forpetessake]

In the current weather discussion board Utica was mentioned briefly. That brought up a ton of memories of which I thought I would share. I live approx 15 miles from Utica. And on April 20, myself and the other coaches of T-ball were meeting in the office at the local fire station community center to draft our players for the upcoming year.

I remembered driving there from my home in pea sized hail and not thinking much of it at the time. Soon after the sirens sounded for the volunteers to come to the fire house and they all rushed off to Utica. (Of course we didnt know that at the time).

I have friends who suffered in that storm. Myself and others did what we could to help the community but it wasnt an easy time of it.

It was very cool when the Chicago White Sox donated themselves, their time and money to rebuild Utica's little league fields.

Anyway, just thought I'd share.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utica,_Illino...ornado_Outbreak

Some pics;
http://community.webshots.com/album/136340227MekSUt
http://photobucket.com/images/utica%2520tornado/

[centralplainssto...]

well since you brought it up
I'm even closer about 8 miles away
i was at a neighbors house watching the weather channel and saw that a tornado had been spotted near Henry.
and it was moving northeast quite fast and Utica was in the line of fire
i ran home and told my mom about it and we went out towards Utica
we went north from my house first and then west a little bit and my mom said at that point the lightning was very different then what is normal for lightning
i didn't see it because i was looking elsewhere, but then we went south to US route 6( which goes into the outskirts of Utica and we looked west and we saw the wedge.. it was incredible. we witnessed it and then a satellite tornado snaked down next to the parent tornado. it was AMAZING
there were some reeds next to us and they were still, and then it must have shifted because all of a sudden they started blowing furiously towards it. we then left because we didn't have any information with us. we saw it for about 5 min

my uncle lives in Utica and was at Skoogs ( a local bar/restaurant) and he was picking up dinner for him and his family and he went outside and it was about on top of him, so he raced home in his squad car and was going 70 mph in his subdivision and hurled his family into the basement.......

it was an amazing yet horrible day

[forpetessake]

well since you brought it up
I'm even closer about 8 miles away
i was at a neighbors house watching the weather channel and saw that a tornado had been spotted near Henry.
and it was moving northeast quite fast and Utica was in the line of fire
i ran home and told my mom about it and we went out towards Utica
we went north from my house first and then west a little bit and my mom said at that point the lightning was very different then what is normal for lightning
i didn't see it because i was looking elsewhere, but then we went south to US route 6( which goes into the outskirts of Utica and we looked west and we saw the wedge.. it was incredible. we witnessed it and then a satellite tornado snaked down next to the parent tornado. it was AMAZING
there were some reeds next to us and they were still, and then it must have shifted because all of a sudden they started blowing furiously towards it. we then left because we didn't have any information with us. we saw it for about 5 min

my uncle lives in Utica and was at Skoogs ( a local bar/restaurant) and he was picking up dinner for him and his family and he went outside and it was about on top of him, so he raced home in his squad car and was going 70 mph in his subdivision and hurled his family into the basement.......

it was an amazing yet horrible day

Yes it was.


And then there was the day we had a microburst in Seneca, but that's another story.

Anyway it's pretty cool that you got to see the wedge though.