2000 — Feb 13-14, Georgia Tornadoes, esp. Camilla, Mitchell Co., also Grady Co., GA– 19
— 22 NYT. “Tornadoes Tear Through Georgia in Middle of the Night Killing 22.” 2-15-2000.
— 19 Blanchard tally of county breakouts below.
— 19 Our Georgia History. “Tornadoes kill 19 in Southwest Georgia.” No date.
— 19 WFXL.com., Albany GA. “Camilla residents remember Valentine’s Day…” 2-14-2011.
— 19 Worldmag.com. “The lights went out in Georgia.” 2-26-2000.
— 18 NWS WFO, Tallahassee, FL. Southwest Georgia Tornado Outbreak of 13-14 Feb 2000.
— 18 Wikipedia. “2000 Southwest Georgia tornado outbreak.” 1-26-2015 modification.
— 11 NCDC, NOAA. Event Record Details, Tornado, Georgia, 13 Feb 2000.
Colquitt County ( 1)
— 1 NYT. “Tornadoes Tear Through Georgia in Middle of the Night Killing 22.” 2-15-2000.
— 1 Feb 14. Our Georgia History. “Tornadoes kill 19 in Southwest Georgia.” No date.
— 1 So. of Omega. Wikipedia. “2000 Southwest Georgia tornado outbreak.” 1-26-2015 mod.
— 1 Supercell #3. NWSWFO, Tallahassee. Southwest GA Tornado Outbreak of 13-14 Feb 2000.
Grady County
— 7 NYT. “Tornadoes Tear Through Georgia in Middle of the Night Killing 22.” 2-15-2000.
— 6 Supercell #3. NWSWFO, Tallahassee. Southwest GA Tornado Outbreak of 13-14 Feb 2000.
Grady County (SW of Meigs) ( 6)
— 6 Feb 14. Our Georgia History. “Tornadoes kill 19 in Southwest Georgia.” No date.
— 6 Wikipedia. “2000 Southwest Georgia tornado outbreak.” 1-26-2015 modification.
Mitchell County (12)
–14 NYT. “Tornadoes Tear Through Georgia in Middle of the Night Killing 22.” 2-15-2000.
–14 Worldmag.com. “The lights went out in Georgia.” 2-26-2000.
–11 Camilla, Feb 13. Our Georgia History. “Tornadoes kill 19 in Southwest Georgia.” No date.
— 1 Mitchell Co., Feb 14. Our Georgia History. “Tornadoes kill 19 in Southwest Georgia.” ND.
–11 Camilla. WALB, Albany, GA. “Camilla Valentine’s Day Tornado.” 2-19-2014.
–11 Camilla. Wikipedia. “2000 Southwest Georgia tornado outbreak.” 1-26-2015 modification.
–10 1st tor. NWS WFO, Tallahassee. Southwest Georgia Tornado Outbreak of 13-14 Feb 2000.
— 1 2nd tor. NWS WFO, Tallahassee. Southwest Georgia Tornado Outbreak of 13-14 Feb 2000.
Narrative Information
NCDC: “A strong tornado tore through two major subdivisions and four mobile home parks just south of Camilla after touching down just east of Branchville. Damage assessments from the American Red Cross and Federal Emergency Management Agency reported 200 homes destroyed and 250 homes were damaged. Two miles south of Camilla on GA Highway 112, a large trailer manufacturing plant was destroyed. Eleven fatalities were confirmed by the Georgia Emergency Management Agency, all of which resided in mobile homes. Approximately 175 persons were injured. The American Red Cross and Salvation Army opened several shelters for the homeless. Hundreds of acres of pecan trees were uprooted, pine trees snapped, and power lines toppled. Numerous irrigation systems were damaged. Property damage estimates totaled $20 million with crop losses estimated at $2 million. Mitchell County was declared a federal disaster area.” (NCDC/NOAA. Event Record Details, Tornado, Georgia, 13 Feb 2000.)
NWS FWO, Tallahassee: “Beginning Sunday evening, February 13, and continuing into the early morning hours of Monday, February 14th, WFO Tallahassee issued 51 warnings. These included 25 tornado, 23 severe thunderstorm, and 3 special marine warnings. During this time, warnings were issued for four deadly tornadoes, which caused the loss of 18 lives in three southwest Georgia Counties, an event unequaled in south Georgia in nearly 50 years….
“Based upon surveys, interviews, and radar analysis, there appear to have been four “killer” tornadoes that struck southwest Georgia. Preliminary surveys had suggested three tornadoes….
“The first Camilla tornadic storm came ashore from the Gulf of Mexico in extreme southwest Bay County, Florida, at approximately 0130 (all times UTC). The cell rapidly developed a circulation and became Supercell #1. The storm was responsible for extensive straight line wind damage in extreme northern Bay County around 0200 and southwestern Washington County around 0215, before continuing across the northeastern Florida Panhandle into Jackson County. It weakened slightly as it crossed Lake Seminole at 0400, which is the dividing line between Alabama, Florida, and Georgia. Supercell #1 then rapidly regained strength across Seminole County, Georgia. It become tornadic at 0442 near Branchville, Georgia in Mitchell County… and remained tornadic (F3) as it passed just south of Camilla before dissipating around 0505. This tornado was responsible for 10 deaths in a mobile home subdivision near Camilla.
“The second Camilla tornadic supercell developed in western Seminole County at 0430….This supercell ultimately developed a circulation as intense as that of Supercell #1. Ironically, it followed almost the same track as the first Camilla tornado, and may have become tornadic as early as 0529. Aerial and ground surveys were unable to resolve an individual track associated with this tornado because it overlapped the track of the first. Interviews with survivors and rescue crews seem to corroborate the existence of this tornado. One death is now attributed to this tornado, in the same mobile home subdivision that was struck by the first tornado. An aerial photo…shows the devastation of the mobile home subdivision. The center of the first Camilla tornado path can be seen from left to right in the center of the picture. The single fatality occurred approximately 250 m south of the first tornado…
“Supercell #3
“Supercell #3 also developed in southern Seminole County, Georgia, at about 0500. The storm developed on the heels of Supercell #2, exhibiting TVS signatures as it moved rapidly across Decatur County into Grady County. It became tornadic around 0549, approximately 10 miles north of Cairo, and then passed along the northern outskirts of Meigs, Georgia at 0600. By far, the longest tornado track (14.5 miles) belongs to the Grady County tornado (Fig. 5). The tornado, rated F3, killed six people.
“The mesocyclone weakened and the tornado dissipated northeast of Meigs. However, it reintensified at 0621 just west of Moultrie, Georgia, in Colquitt County, and became tornadic again around 0639 as it passed near Crosland and Omega, Georgia. The Omega tornado was rated F2, and produced one fatality in Colquitt County near Crosland. The damage track…was approximately 6 miles in length….” (National Weather Service Weather Forecast Office, Tallahassee, FL (Gould, Turnage, Fournier, Watson, Goree, Block and Trexler). Southwest Georgia Tornado Outbreak of 13-14 February 2000: An Overview. 7-21-2000 modification.)
Media
NYT, Feb 15: “Camilla, Ga., Feb. 14. — Attacking under cover of darkness and with little warning, tornadoes rumbled through southwest Georgia early this morning, killing at least 22 people, injuring more than 100 and transforming peaceful subdivisions into wastelands of debris.
“Because the storms began just before midnight, many sleeping residents had no idea of the danger until they heard the cracking of pine trees and the shattering of window panes. Some did not even have time to get out of bed and into a closet.
“Tiny local hospitals, far more accustomed to treating flu symptoms than large-scale emergencies, were quickly overwhelmed and had to dispatch the injured all across south Georgia. Power was lost at the 24-bed Mitchell County Hospital, which spent much of the night using an emergency generator.
“It was not until dawn broke, more than seven hours after the storms began, that rescue workers could conduct any systematic search for the dead and injured. That job continued throughout the afternoon, carried out by an army of law-enforcement officers equipped with bulldozers and German shepherds.
“Survivors told stories of a midnight horror. In the minutes after the tornadoes struck, dazed residents wandered into the darkness to find that brick houses had disintegrated, mobile homes had disappeared into the night and forests of pines had snapped like matchsticks. Doused by heavy rain, many blindly followed the wails of injured neighbors and then used cellular telephones to summon emergency workers….
“Most of the deaths — 14 as of this evening — were here in Mitchell County, a rural area of pecan groves, cotton fields and peanut farms, with a population of 21,000. State officials said that seven more people died in Grady County, just south of here, and that one died in Colquitt County, just to the east. Gov. Roy E. Barnes declared a state of emergency in those counties and Tift County, which is northeast of Colquitt, and requested federal disaster assistance. After surveying the damage by helicopter this morning, Mr. Barnes said it looked as if one tornado had cut a swath 10 miles long and 1.5 miles wide. ”There’s a mobile home park on the south side of town and it just looks like a bomb dropped,” Mr. Barnes said, speaking in Camilla. ”It’s just flattened, nothing left.”….
“It was unclear exactly how many tornadoes had formed and how strong they were. Matthew R. Volkmer, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Tallahassee, Fla., said there were at least two or three tornadoes in the area and five or six ”super-cell thunderstorms.” Several residents here said they felt a second, lesser tornado blow through about 20 minutes after the first one.
“The American Red Cross said that initial damage assessments found that 198 structures, most of them houses, had been destroyed here in Mitchell County. An additional 81 sustained major damage and 87 had minor damage. The Red Cross opened a shelter in a middle school here, and more than 100 people stayed there on Monday night….
“Clearly some of the worst damage occurred in a mobile home park on the south side of U.S. 19, just outside the Camilla city limits. Many trailers were simply obliterated, and the park was littered today with downed trees and piles of nearly unrecognizable rubble. The ground was tinted pink and black from tufts of insulation and shards of shingles. Red drapery and silver strips of sheet metal flapped like flags from the upper limbs of the few denuded trees that still stood….” (New York Times (Kevin Sack). “Tornadoes Tear Through Georgia in Middle of the Night Killing 22.” 2-15-2000.)
Our Georgia History: “Sunday evening the Weather Center in Tallahassee, Florida was busy issuing tornado and thunderstorm watches for Florida and southern Georgia. Late Sunday (February 13) the first of three supercell tornadoes moved across the southwest corner of Georgia, striking Camilla (Mitchell County) around midnight. This storm killed 11 people in the city. Shortly, two more tornadoes struck, early in the morning of February 14 (Valentine’s Day). These tornadoes caused 6 deaths in Grady County, one in Mitchell County and one in Colquitt.
(Our Georgia History. “Tornadoes kill 19 in Southwest Georgia.” No date.)
WFXL.com, Feb 14, 2011: “Camilla, GA — Monday marked the 11th anniversary when a tornado ripped through Camilla. Nineteen people were killed by the tornado and many homes were completely destroyed….The streets that were the hardest hit by the tornado were Goodson and McNair….” (WFXL.com., (Allen Carter) Albany GA. “Camilla residents remember Valentine’s Day…” 2-14-2011.)
WorldMag.com: “….19 people [were] killed in four counties by Valentine’s Day tornadoes that ripped with savage fury through southwestern Georgia….
“…the first of these twisters touched down in Camilla at 12:09 a.m. on Valentine’s Day, less than an hour after the National Weather Service issued its first warning. That spinning menace blew apart brick homes, tossed trailers like cereal boxes, and claimed 14 lives.” (Worldmag.com. “The lights went out in Georgia.” 2-26-2000.)
Sources
National Climatic Data Center. Event Record Details, Tornado, Georgia, 13 Feb 2000. NCDC, NOAA, Department of Commerce. Accessed 2-4-2009 at:
http://www4.ncdc.noaa.gov/cgi-win/wwcgi.dll?wwevent~ShowEvent~384200
National Weather Service Weather Forecast Office, Tallahassee, FL (Gould, Turnage, Fournier, Watson, Goree, Block and Trexler). Southwest Georgia Tornado Outbreak of 13-14 February 2000: An Overview. 7-21-2000 modification. Accessed 6-1-2015 at: http://www.srh.noaa.gov/tlh/?n=research-gould-sls
New York Times (Kevin Sack). “Tornadoes Tear Through Georgia in Middle of the Night Killing 22.” 2-15-2000. Accessed 6-1-2015 at: http://www.nytimes.com/2000/02/15/us/tornadoes-tear-through-georgia-in-middle-of-the-night-killing-22.html
Our Georgia History. “Tornadoes kill 19 in Southwest Georgia.” No date. Accessed 6-1-2015 at: http://www.ourgeorgiahistory.com/ogh/Tornadoes_kill_19_in_Southwest_Georgia
WALB, Albany, GA. “Camilla Valentine’s Day Tornado.” 2-19-2014. Accessed 6-1-2015 at: http://www.walb.com/story/24730214/camilla-valentines-day-tornado
WFXL.com., (Allen Carter) Albany GA. “Camilla residents remember Valentine’s Day…” 2-14-2011. Accessed 6-1-2015 at: http://www.wfxl.com/news/story.aspx?id=581002#.VW0DQkY9Z15
Wikipedia. “2000 Southwest Georgia tornado outbreak.” 1-26-2015 modification. Accessed 6-1-2015 at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_Southwest_Georgia_tornado_outbreak