Picking Up Pieces in the Dark
This bike had clearly been tossed around. A power transformer lies in the background.
Several tornadoes touched down across the state on Saturday. Countless roads on the east side of Raleigh are closed off, and crews from Raleigh Parks and Recreation, among several other departments and agencies, are working throughout the night to pick up the pieces left behind from the series of storms.
I was downtown when the supercell rolled over the city, and got this footage from underneath the new Contemporary Art Museum:
After the storm passed, I had no idea of the extent of the damage until a bit later.
Hargett Street east of Fayetteville St was dark
Landmark Tavern powered by candlelight and gas lamps
There were at least two bars that stayed open despite losing power: Landmark Tavern and Slim’s Downtown Distillery. I got a beer at Landmark to experience it. The slightly warm beer, lack of music, and candle light made it seem like the wild west.
Inside of Landmark, lit by candle
Slims Downtown Distillery, also powered by candle light
a homeless person sleeps on a bench near some damaged shelters in Moore Square
Overturned tent, and a dented acorn
Moore Square got a good beating. The acorn is dented and several of the oak trees have been splintered and damaged.
Overturned tree on Blount Street
Splintered tree in Moore Square
The Progress Energy Building has power, most others on the east side don't
Wilmington Street: dark
The Montague Building
Raleigh Parks and Recreation removing down trees after 2AM
Overturned truck off Yonkers Road
Several businesses along Yonkers Road had paneling pulled from them, and roadsigns are tossed about and backward. The entire area is covered in fiberglass insulation that was ripped from storefront exteriors.
Damaged storefront off of Yonkers Road
Damaged traffic lights and road signs of Raleigh Blvd
Another damaged traffic light
Crossing signal and a snapped tree
Bojangles is in the background, and it was not damaged. However, both Edenton and Tarboro had several massive trees blocking them.
There were fatalities and injuries in Raleigh, a few near the areas featured here. There are a lot of pieces to pick up, and many folks lost their livelihoods or their homes.
My hat goes off to everyone that is coming together to pick up after the storm, so early on a Sunday morning.
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04/17/2011
Good pictures. The area from Tarboro Street/New Bern Avenue to the Yonkers Road area is pretty rough and it is not getting any media attention which I fear means it might not be getting the help it needs. It has a dense population of housing.
This is a video when I drove through there yesterday. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wi4-XCB_lOw
I am going to check back today to see how things are going and if it is still rough I will load up the chainsaw and go help out, if the professionals are there I will stay out of the way. The area was developed in the 50’s so the tress that came down are massive.
04/19/2011
I agree that there are several hard hit areas in Raleigh that are not getting media attention. The South Saunders area is pretty bad as are the neighborhoods east of downtown. It seems as though the media isn’t interested in reporting about the poorer areas of the city unless there are fatalities involved. Very unfortunate.
09/24/2014
I also was at Landmark Tavern that evening. What a coincidence.
Our neighborhood was one of the worst hit in North Raleigh McMinnely Mill off of Mitchell Mill and Forestville. Our side of our neighborhood was fine but the backside was not so lucky. It was my then boyfriend’s (now fiance’) birthday, I wasn’t feeling well. We had booked a ghost tour that evening. He got me up off the couch for a walk outside to try and get my energy up so as not to spoil our evening plans. We went outside and I remember telling him that the green hue of the sky was not right and that being from the Midwest meant Tornado weather. (I am paranoid weather nerd) It started to rain and we headed inside and turned on the TV to discover that I was right. I had a bad feeling watched the Sanford tornado and knew we were going to be right in the path. We hunkered down in the hallway it went right over us (no damage on our street!) demolishing the streets behind ours only a few hundred yards away.
After surveying the damage and figuring out really there was nothing we could really do we tried to salvage the evening (and not waste the money I had already paid for a group of us.) We went downtown and met at the foundation but it was closed so we walked over to Landmark instead. I went to the bathroom with a red wax candle, stumbled my way into,whoops, the men’s room, came out and one of the kitchen guys jumped from the kitchen doorway at me, I screamed and threw the red wax all over the wall across from the bathroom. It was especially eery doing the ghost tour on the east side of the city with no power.