A Not So False Alarm

When the tornado sirens went off late at night on August 6, 2013, I was playing Halo with my Dad in the living room in our house in Hortonville, Wisconsin. At first, we thought nothing of it. After all, tornado sirens are fairly commonplace in the area. So common, in fact, that the alarm system is tested once a week most of the time, rather than once a month like most states. Dutifully, we woke my Step-Mom, Brother, and Step-Sister and headed down to the basement to wait out what was sure to be another false alarm thunderstorm.

As it turned out, this was not one of those false alarms. All in all, six tornadoes touched down in the Fox River Valley, causing over $30 million in property damage and leaving tens of thousands of residents without power for days. Not only Hortonville, but New London, Kaukauna, Appleton, Wrightstown, and Maribel had all been affected. Luckily, outside of a couple of ripped up sections of roofing and some broken windows, our house was fine but other buildings in our community weren’t so lucky. Right down the street, the local church had been demolished, as had the local grocery store. 

The six tornadoes that touched down that night were the most Outagamie County had ever recorded in one day and more than doubled the total tornado count for the region in the previous 30 years. While none of the tornadoes were too severe by themselves (1 EF2 and 5 EF1’s) they certainly did a great deal of damage as a group. Outside of the initial damage, the ripping up of vegetation combined with the heavy rains that came with the accompanying thunderstorms caused a number of small landslides and flooding events in the area, including in the creek behind our house. 

Works Cited DeCastro, P. (2018, April 24). This summer marks five years since 2013 tornado outbreak. Retrieved from https://fox11online.com/weather/weather-stories/this-summer-marks-five-years-since-2013-tornado-outbreak US Department of Commerce, & Noaa. (2015, August 6). August 7, 2013 Severe Weather Outbreak. Retrieved from https://www.weather.gov/grb/080713_tornadoes