Atlanta hit by tornado Options

[*paperplane*]

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/03/14/storm.atlanta/

A tornado swept through downtown Atlanta Friday night, slamming trees into cars and homes, disrupting a college basketball game and damaging the building that houses CNN.

Atlanta Fire Department spokesman Capt. Bill May said there were numerous injuries and widespread damage reported in downtown Atlanta, with roofs ripped off and trees torn down.

The storm tracked from the northwest side of the city to the southeast, demolishing buildings and downing trees that crushed cars and ripped through the roofs of homes.

From the pictures, it looks pretty bad. A tornado hitting a big city is kind of a big deal, probably seemingly more so than it would otherwise because it happens pretty rarely.

According to the NOAA, the deadliest tornado to hit a downtown area in the 20th century was May 11, 1953, when 114 people were killed in Waco, Texas.
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Although downtown tornadoes are rare, it's a misconception they can't happen, according to The Tornado Project, a company that gathers and compiles tornado information. "That more 'cities' aren't struck by tornadoes is probably more coincidence than anything else," according to the project's Web site.

"There are very few 'big cities' with skyscrapers in Tornado Alley. In fact, there are only a dozen, and one of them, St. Louis, Missouri, has a long history of tornadoes in its central area."

Being not very far away from downtown Atlanta and having friends over there, this freaks me out a little bit.