A powerful tornado touched down in Salt Lake City early Wednesday afternoon, killing at least one person, injuring dozens of others, shattering windows, collapsing tents at the Outdoor Retailers Summer Market and ripping off sections of roof from the Delta Center and other buildings.
The tornado hit at about 12:45 p.m. Rescuers and emergency management officials were still counting casualties at mid afternoon.As the dark tornado funnel -- an uncommon sight in the Mountain West -- crossed the I-15 corridor, motorists stopped in their tracks.
Meteorologist Chris Young of the National Weather Service said the storm -- classified as an F2 on a scale of 0-5 -- then invaded the city's downtown area and headed through the Capitol Hill and Avenues neighborhoods to the east, damaging houses but losing potency as it went.
Gov. Mike Leavitt, following a fly-over tour of the damage, declared a state of emergency and asked the Federal Emergency Management Administration for assistance.
In its path, the storm ripped trees up by their roots, damaged and disabled power lines and transformers, and toppled the top half of a construction crane at the site of the new LDS assembly hall. The tornado spawned what one officer termed a "very dangerous" natural gas leak at the Salt Palace, which was subsequently evacuated.
It flattened the large, wood-framed commercial tents at the retailers show, battering and trapping people inside them. The Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office brought in search and rescue dogs to search for victims. Many of the injured were busy setting up for Thursday's start of the Outdoor Retailers show.
Larry Schmidt and his wife Pat were inside a booth at the retailers show when the winds started blowing hard and the tent started shaking.
"She said, 'Let's get out of here.' I got out the door," he said. "You couldn't see anything. When it (the tornado) passed over I saw her lying face down in the doorway with the building (trailer) lying on her back."
Schmidt's wife was taken to an area hospital but her condition was unknown.
He said that big tents at the event had been demolished, leaving piles of shredded debris. Only the tent supports stood, looking like skeletons.
He said that people had been evacuated to the Salt Palace. Medical helicopters were transporting the injured. And it all occurred in a driving rain.
A Utah Power substation in Arrow Press Square malfunctioned after high winds took out power lines there. Utah Power spokesman David Eskelsen said power was knocked out intermittently from Redwood Road to State Street and from 600 North to 900 South.
So many people were hurt downtown that some of the injured were transported by UTA buses to local hospitals, as well as ambulances, which came from across the Wasatch Front, and helicopters.
The University of Utah Medical Center was expecting up to 200 victims, according to Gary Ouellette, director of blood services for the American Red Cross. The hospital was treating four people at 2:30 p.m., including two in serious condition. Salt Lake Regional Medical Center reported 22 victims were treated there. LDS Hospital reported 15 injured and more on the way. Local hospitals activated their disaster plans, calling in additional medical personnel.
Ouellette said the local blood supply appears to be adequate but asked the public to be prepared to donate as soon as a plea is issued. The Red Cross was coordinating with local hospitals to assure adequate blood supply.
About an hour-and-a-half after the tornado struck, the Salt Lake City Police Department cleared the streets downtown from 200 South to South Temple and 400 West to State Street for fear that falling glass, branches or other debris may injure them. Police then began a top-to-bottom sweep of all buildings in that area. A group of power poles were down at 100 South and 400 West.
Eyewitnesses were in shock.
"It was just like being at the movies -- 'Twister,'" said Nick Casaril, at bellboy at the Marriott Hotel. Employees and patrons there ducked into the parking garage and watched the tornado go over Abravanel Hall and go north, Casaril said.
Valerie Hall was in her office on the eighth floor of the Triad Center when she saw the storm approaching.
"My office overlooks the Delta Center," said Hall, an employee of Bonneville Media Group. "I was just sitting here, and it started hailing really hard, and then the wind started whipping up, and pretty soon tree limbs and tree parts and parts of the building and things. . . . Huge chunks of things started flying. It was just unreal."
Hall said she started running around her office, warning people to get down.
"I was in the middle of the 'Wizard of Oz' up here," she said.
Looking out the window again, she saw lightning and sparks and fires outside. Temporary tents, set up for the Outdoor Retailers show, "have been blown to bits," she said. "The top part of the Delta Center is blown off. The (Wyndham Hotel) has the windows all blown out of it."
Mike Lindsay witnessed destruction from the fifth floor of the Triad Center.
"We were looking out west by the Union Pacific building and there's a huge tornado building up behind it," Lindsay said. "We kept seeing flashes as it took down power lines."
Lindsay said he watched the funnel-shaped tornado come from behind the Union Pacific building and come right over the Delta Center.
"There were big shreds that looked like canvas on the top, actually flying from the top of the Delta Center," he said. "It had that dark grey look with debris flying around with it."
Lindsay said he and his co-workers were fascinated with the scene, but quickly became concerned for their safety. "It was a sense of, oh, that's cool, to oh oh, it could come our way."
Nichole Moody, an employee of ameriquest Mortgage on the fourth floor of the Triad Center, said, "We saw it (the tornado) in the reflection of the building. We could see the whole thing swirling on top. At first I thought it was cool. I didn't know it was a tornado. Then I saw chunk of the Delta Center roof fly by."
Moody said the force of the blast knocked out power and sent employees in the Triad Center pouring into the hallways to get away from the windows of the building.
An apartment building at 700 West and 200 South had the roof torn off.
Several bloodied tenants were walking around outside the two-story structure
shortly after the tornado struck.
The construction site of the new LDS assembly hall north of Temple Square was hit hard. Witnesses said the wind snapped off the arm of a large yellow crane on site and broke the anchors on a smaller white crane.
Casey Peay, a masonry worker at the site, described the wind as "a big ol' dust devil. I saw a pretty large cloud and all of a sudden the safety guy came and said, 'Get out of here' and everybody just scattered."
Ted Jacobsen, chairman of Jacobsen Construction, was in a meeting in a trailer at the assembly hall site, where about 800 people were working. "There were a lot of materials flying around," he said. Even as the storm approached construction workers began evacuating.
"They're pretty savvy," said Ben Nielsen of Okland Construction. "They know how to take care of themselves." No major injuries were immediately reported at the site, but a pedestrian nearby, at the intersection of North Temple and West Temple. "Everybody hid inside (the new structure) and then when it was over everybody ran outside" said Paulo Aiono, a construction worker.
Aiono saw two portable toilets flying through the air. "I don't even know where they're at now."
One man was struck by lightning at 1500 S. 1475 West in Woods Cross at 12:45 p.m., about the same time the twister hit. A dispatcher said the man was in critical condition.
Camber Pressgrove was seating a party for lunch at the Garden Restaurant on the 10th floor of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building when she saw the sky grow darker and a funnel cloud approach downtown.
"When it started getting closer and bigger, I said, 'You guys, this isn't normal,'" said the Texas native, who has seen some twisters. "Debris was everywhere and quickly coming our way."
Pressgrove saw the tornado hit the Delta Center along with a series of flashes or "explosions."
Several customers were standing at the west windows of the restaurant and taking pictures when Pressgrove, who manages the restaurant, evacuated the place.
Frank Greene was driving a delivery truck for Globe Seafood when "everything just came at me at once. Metal and trees were bouncing off the truck and (the truck) just flipped."
Greene suffered back and neck injuries and cuts.
Others at the same intersection of North Temple and 200 West left their vehicles and ran into a nearby Dees Restaurant and hid under the tables.
Except Wilma Neal, who just "stopped the car, hung onto the steering wheel and closed my eyes."
Michael Jensen, 15, had never seen a tornado despite growing up Texas. "This isn't where I expected to see one," he said, standing outside the Dees restaurant.
One merchant setting up inside the Outdoor Retailers tents said he looked outside, saw the circling clouds and debris, and with several other workers ran across South Temple into the lobby of the Wyndham Hotel, 215 W. South Temple. The tornado then hit, blowing out the hotel's windows and cutting dozens of people.
After the wind stopped, he ran back across the street to the tent where there were live wires covering the ground. He and a friend started to help people who were crushed underneath an overturned semi-truck trailer, but paramedics had arrived and the civilians were told to leave.
Many people inside and outside the Wyndham were injured. At least four dozen hotel windows were blown out, with draperies and insulation left hanging outside the windows. Hotel personnel and emergency workers set up triage inside the hotel lobby, and rescue workers took several people on stretchers to waiting ambulances, many of them with obvious head injuries. Several ambulances were loaded with multiple passengers as they left the hotel and made their way to area hospitals.
"We've got people laying all over hurt," a hotel employee said shortly after the tornado hit. "We're under a severe crisis situation. It's real bad."
George Keller, of St. Louis, was in the Wyndham Hotel near a window when the tornado hit. "The window behind me held. The window next to me blew out and the guy standing next to me got cut up pretty good."
"It was an amazing experience. I'm from the Midwest and we don't see funnel clouds like this one."
There were some rocks, a lot of debris and some large piece of metal inside that whirlwind, Keller said.
He said a lot of people in the hotel were injured. There were five to 10 people on the ground and many others were injured. People were "grabbing towels as fast they could" to administer to the injured.
Duff Clawson was with some friends, standing on the parking terrace at Trolley Square when he saw funnel clouds to the west. He said he saw an explosion in The Avenues.
"Kaboom, kaboom. I swear we saw roofs flying," Clawson said. "If anyone was home, they're not now."
People on the freeway reported that motorists going southbound on I-15 saw the tornado coming and just stopped.
The Utah Highway Patrol reported one injury accident on I-15 at about the time the tornado struck. The 12:53 p.m. accident involved one vehicle heading northbound at 2100 South.
The northbound I-15 ramps at 600 North and 900 South were closed shortly after the tornado and remained closed late afternoon.
Deseret News promotions director Steve Handy was on the freeway by 900 South when he saw the funnel cloud.
"You could see lightning inside it," he said. "It was amazing."
Val Adams, a local employee of the Los Angeles Times, was standing in a crowd by the windows at the ZCMI Center, facing Crossroads Mall.
"Trees were bending over and people warned us not to stand by the glass. We watched it for about five minutes," she said. "People who were from back East laughed and said, 'Boy, these people don't know a tornado when they see it.'"
At the Department of Human Services building on North Temple, several windows were blown out by the wind. There were reports of several injuries in the building but they were unconfirmed.
An unidentified passerby near the building said, "I lived in Miami for awhile and I was there during Hurricane Andrew and this looked a lot like that."
Officials said that this was not the first time a tornado has struck the city. In 1968 a huge wind hit the downtown area, blew out some hotel windows. But Wednesday's storm seems to have been more destructive.
"We get about one tornado a year in Utah, but not in the Salt Lake area," said Donald Jensen, state climatologist. The Utah Climate Center has more than 100 years of data on Utah weather.
As tornados go, 1998 was a busy year in the area, he said. On May 8, a tornado touched down in West Valley City. May 21, one hit Roy, in Weber County. And the same day, West Point in Davis County got one.
Before that, the most recent tornados were in Centerville in 1995 and Erda and North Salt Lake in 1992.
Jensen said the severity of a tornado is measured by the damage it leaves in its wake. The index runs zero to five, with five the most severe. "We get tornados of zero, one and very rarely, two."
American Red Cross
Greater Salt Lake Area Chapter
Address: PO Box 3836, Salt Lake City UT, 84110
Phone: 801-323-7000
Fax: 801-323-7018
Graphic on how tornadoes form
National Weather Service, Salt Lake office
FEMA Fact Sheet: Tornadoes
Tornadoes overview from the National Weather Service
Further details will be provided as they become available. Last updated 4:30 p.m. (MDT)