Weather Adventures • Bertha 1996 • Fran 1996 • Silver Creek Flood 2004 • Patton Road • Millersville F2

On Thursday July 8, 2005 a tornado touched down in Millersville, NC around 1:30pm EDT. There were many structures and numerous trees damaged by the storm. The National Weather Service has determined that an F-2 tornado with winds in the 113-157 mph range went through the area. Click on the button at the bottom of the page to read some of the local news articles about the storm.

My wife Dana and I visited the area on Saturday July 10, 2005. The map above shows the general area where the tornado occurred in southern Alexander County, North Carolina. Millersville is located about 35 miles East-Northeast of Silver Creek Observatory. The highlighted area of the aerial below shows the zone where we saw the greatest amount of damage. Overall many trees had branches broken off, while some were completely destroyed. Most all the buildings in the region had some roof damage, with a few that had their entire roofs blown off. The locality with the greatest concentration of wreckage  was at the northern end of the damage track in a housing development ( location 1 ). Most all the homes here had their roofs covered by tarps due to wind damage. Southwest of this neighborhood along Highway 16 the area is more rural so there was more tree breakage. The houses here also suffered similar roof damage to those at the Northeast end of the damage zone ( location 3 ). Also a trailer in this area was absolutely destroyed ( location 2 ). This was a really bad incident, but it could have been a whole lot worse.

To view the photographs that we took of the damaged area click on the appropriate numbered location box in the aerial photo below.  Each box contains the pictures from that particular location.

Image from: TerraServer USA