[PVRCNC] AA4NC tornado report

[Roberts, Will]

Just getting a chance to breathe and get a little report in. As you can imagine, we have been very busy at home and work dealing with the storm and its aftermath. Thanks to you guys for your calls and e-mails checking on me. It appears from the weather forensics that the tornado that hit Sanford and took out the Lowe's store continued on northeast to Holly Springs, then over my area east of Apex to downtown Raleigh and ultimately to northeast Raleigh where the 4 children were killed.

I consider myself very lucky. It looks like that the tornado's edge was at the dividing line of my next door neighbor's house to the south. Almost every tree in their yard is down which includes an oak tree that must be 8' in diameter and 120' tall. My 120' tower is about 100' from this oak tree but it somehow survived. Luckily that tree did not fall on their house. It would have killed them. As it was, some fair sized pines did hit their house and did substantial damage. Other neighbors to my east and northeast have lots of house damage from fallen trees.

At my place the 80 and 160 wire antennas are down and my 402CD beam that was reduced to a 401CD dipole in a past ice storm became a 401/2CD as one side of the dipole blew down. A few sections of tubing on the lower 204BA blew down, but that's about it. Amazingly, there seems to be no damage above the 70' level on either tower except for the rotors windmilling off azimuth. Some siding was blown off the house, roof shingles were lost, and lots of limbs and a couple small red tip trees are down. Having only small trees in the yard probably saved my towers and house again.

I hope everyone is well and thanks again for checking in on me.

See you guys this Saturday at the RARSfest.

73,

Will AA4NC