Twister rips Oregon town

Lane County residents experienced the kind of pounding rain Tuesday that might be referred to as biblical — rain like a guy named Noah might have experienced a few thousand years ago.

It was all part of a storm system that hit Western Oregon and included the weirdness of that rarest of Northwest weather phenomenons — a tornado. And a doozy of a twister at that.

“We saw a trampoline fly over a church. It was like the Wizard of Oz,” Gara Adams, who works at Neufeldt’s Restaurant on Main Street in Aumsville, told The Associated Press.

In case you’ve never been there, Aumsville is a town of about 3,500 just southeast of Salem, along the Santiam Highway. That is where the walls of a brick church were demolished, a lawn chair became embedded in a truck’s windshield, a flag pole at the fire station was bent in half and the roof of a barber shop flew off when the tornado hit just before noon Tuesday.

“I thought it was the end,” said barber Steven Worden, who was cutting a customer’s hair when his roof disappeared like a toupee caught in the wind.

Aumsville City Administrator MaryAnn Hills said a plumbing fixture store across the street from City Hall was severely damaged. “There’s maybe a quarter of the building left,” Hills said. “Most of it ended up on the house next door.”

Hills said people in her office listened as “the loudest hail I’ve ever heard” pounded the roof. Then, a funnel cloud appeared and debris ripped from the roofs of houses began to fly toward downtown.

Justin Profitt, 22, said he was watching a movie in his bedroom when he heard a rattling and looked outside to see his fence had fallen.

“I was freaking out,” Profitt said. “I have lived in Oregon all my life, and I never thought I would actually see a tornado.”

The tornado ultimately followed a northeast course through 11 blocks of residential and commercial buildings before lifting from the surface near Highway 22. There were no reported deaths, only two minor injuries and no reports of anyone unaccounted for, according to the Marion County Sheriff’s Office.

No property damage estimate was available, but it’s expected to be significant.

Fifty homes were damaged, and 10 families were confirmed displaced. The Red Cross opened a shelter at the Mountain View Wesleyan Church, where workers delivered food, beverages and debit cards that pay for people’s groceries and clothing.

Gov. Ted Kulongoski said the state will provide help to the city and county once it’s requested. He invited residents in other parts of the state to consider contributing to Aumsville families. “This is going to be a tough Christmas for the people in Aumsville,” he said.

Others affected by Tuesday’s weird weather included motorists along Interstate 5. Oregon State Police troopers responded to at least eight traffic crashes between Salem and Brownsville as hail shot from the skies between noon and 1 p.m. Several minor injuries were reported.

The Aumsville twister was the first to strike in Oregon since a tornado touched down in Lincoln County on Dec. 9, 2009, according to the National Weather Service.

Most commonly associated with the Midwest and the deep South, tornadoes are certainly not common in Oregon, but they do happen once or twice a year on average, said Gerald Macke of the National Weather Service in Portland.

“It’s not unheard of. This just happened to be a bad one,” he said of Tuesday’s twister in Aumsville.

Three things are required for a tornado, said Kathie Dello, a research scientist with the Oregon Climate Service at Oregon State University. You need a wind shear, a heat source and moisture, she said.

“We had all three happen (Tuesday),” Dello said. Unstable cold air slammed into an unseasonable warm, moist air mass that has lingered in the Willamette Valley for days.

Sun breaks Tuesday might have made the situation worse because air rises when it warms, Macke said.

The last reported tornadolike activity in Lane County was on Dec. 2, 1999, when a funnel cloud roared through downtown Creswell, damaging some homes and businesses.

The worst tornado in Oregon history, according to the National Weather Service, occurred April 5, 1972, when a category F3 twister hit the Portland-Vancouver, Wash., area. It started in Portland before crossing the Columbia River, and resulted in six deaths, about 300 injuries and $3 million in damage.

The only other tornadoes known to have caused deaths in the state are the two oldest on record, both occurring in Eastern Oregon in the 19th century. A June 8, 1894, twister near Long Creek in Grant County killed three people, and a June 14, 1887, tornado also near Long Creek claimed one life.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.