My thoughts are with everyone.

The storm continued to Wood County, WV.  Lots of homes destroyed and at least one confirmed dead here.  We just don't see storms like this often with our local topography.  I am sure it was scary in Athens last night.

Hopefully with the damage to AHS, Schaus steps up to the plate, offers the Bulldogs Peden for a game (at least) this season with all proceeds to the tornado victims.

Thoughts and prayers to everyone affected.

The power just came back on on the east side of Athens (out off of State Street).  This came close to being a major disaster with significant loss of life.  There was a girls soccer game going on at the AHS stadium at the time of the storms.  The visitors' bleachers are a twisted wreck, the press box was completely blown off of it's supports and the concession stand is now missing a roof.  With as many people in and around the stadium as there were it's a miracle no one is in mourning today.

The most significant residential damage is in the area close to the stadium and in the development around the Plains Elementary School.  We just received an 8 page Messenger and the pictures in it pretty well capture the story.

As someone mentioned earlier, it would be an ideal time for OU to step up and offer their sports facilities to AHS because it's the right thing to do not to mention that in previous years, AHS has extended their facilities to OU when they needed to use them.

Shabamon... call that number I posted up above for the Red Cross. They are coordinating volunteers for clean-up, etc.

Here is what I have gathered from the official storm reports, and some of our undergraduates at Scalia Lab (NOTE: some of the students shadowed the NWS on the survey)

A tornado was confirmed by the NWS in Athens County... it formed 4 miles S. of Nelsonville, traveled approx. 3 miles.  This tornado was an EF2, with winds in the 110-120 MPH range.

The tornado had dissipated by the time it reached The Plains (though there may have been rotation, funnels, etc.). The storm was actually beginning to die some, but when you have 120 MPH winds, the downdraft is going to be nasty as the storm cycles out... it doesn't just crap out instantaneously. The damage in The Plains was laid out in a very distinct NW to SE pattern, which is why the survey said no tornado at that point.  Based on the damage to the field, school, and single-wides, they are saying a downburst/microburst with approximately 100 MPH winds (keep in mind, while it may not have been a tornado, 100 MPH winds will mess things up; the only difference between this and a tornado is how the wreckage lays out afterward, this was serious stuff.... wind speeds were still at EF1 tornado strength, just not rotating at the time).

By the time it reached Athens, the downdrafts were continuing, but were still producing 80-100 MPH winds.  This is what took out AutoTech.

Yes, there were funnels around Athens, but they did not reach the ground, so it appears.  The funnel pictures for the most part were from about 15 minutes later, on a trailing cell which was firing off of the main one, and heading SE.  Those funnels did eventually materialize into an EF3 (!) tornado in Meigs County, and Wood County, WV.  This tornado had 150 MPH winds in OH, 160 in WV (and a fatality, unfortunately).

In addition, tornadoes were confirmed in Perry County (2), Holmes County, Wayne County, and Tuscarawas County.

I was in the pressbox and vacated a scant minute or two before it was wrecked-----------then I was in the car by the Messenger driveway when parts of the roof blew over me.  Scary times and the devastation for the area where I was standing, parked, and driving gave me pause when I viewed it yesterday.

Thre are a lot of folks on The Plains who were not as lucky as I was.