Significant tornado hits downtown Atlanta 14/3/2008
Hello
I was reading through CNN.com website and discovered in an early news bulletin that the CNN building in Atlanta has been heavily damaged by a significant tornado, Friday evening 14/3/2008. The events are still unfolding as I summarise this but it is confirmed that a EF2 Tornado has struck central Atlanta in Georgia USA for the first time since weather records began in the city since the late 1800s.
I believe that this would make a great article and discussion thread for the 2008 tornado season in the USA.
No daytime photos are available yet as I write this because the event is still unfolding. However, the National Weather Service has rated the tornado as an EF2 which had winds of around 130 miles per hour.
CNN is covering this quite well given that their headquarters was struck. It is under the heading "Tornado trashes Atlanta" on CNN.com website. The storey highlights so far in summary form include:-
a) Downtown Atlanta is a no go zone and residents urged to stay away from the city centre as a result of shattered glass falling from high rise buildings.
b) The city's tallest building, the 73 storey Westin Peachtree Plaza was damaged and shattered glass has been observed falling from this skyscraper.
c) The city's Cabbagetown is hard hit which is the city's historic quarter located just east of downtown.
d) Part of Atlanta's MARTA mass transit rail was shut down due to damage on the city's eastern fringe.
e) It is the first twister to strike downtown Atlanta since record keeping began in the late 1800s.
f) The tornado ploughed a path 6 miles long (10 km) through the city.
g) The tornado touch down was in the Vine City neighbourhood, west of the city centre, them moved through Georgia Dome, CNN Centre, Centennial Olympic Park and Cabbagetown with substantial damage to all buildings and the Olympic Park precinct.
h) It left holes in the roof of the Georgia World Congress Centre and a large warehouse.
i) It hit the 71,000 seat Georgia Dome at 9.45 pm and a basketball game was in action at the time.
It was a night time twister and came about following violent thunderstorms that battered areas of Georgia including Atlanta.
There are early daytime photos of neighbourhoods hit mainly showing fallen trees but at the time of looking, I could not find any showing the city centre at day break. This is a breaking news storey and considering that it has had a direct hit on a city of around 3.6 million residents, this storey will continue to receive coverage for some time. It would be great if others could add to this as time goes on given that it is not an everyday occurrence where you see a tornado striking within a major city centre.
The above is a simple summary from the CNN.com storey dated 15/3/2008 (USA Time) and is part of a much larger significant weather event still unfolding in that part of the USA.
Harley Pearman
