@texasag1969 said: I remember watching an interview with a guy who had watch two massive oak trees in his front yard yanked up from his front yard and twisted together like pretzels. They showed pictures of them before and after the tornado. The trees were huge and afterwards they were just gone.  We had an F5 in Jarrell about 10 miles from me where it leveled a small subdivision so badly that the asphalt was even stripped from the roads in many places. Over 20 people killed in that area. From wiki: "The tornado produced some of the most extreme ground scouring ever documented, as the earth at and around the Double Creek Estates was scoured out to depths of 18-24 inches (46-61 cm), reducing lush fields of grass to vast expanses of mud. When the tornado crossed county roads outside of Jarrell, it tore away 500-foot (152 m) segments of asphalt from the roads and chipped pieces of concrete out of their respective slabs.[2] The tornado also picked up large amounts of loose soil as it deeply scoured the ground, producing a sandblasting effect on nearby houses and their occupants. In addition to the 27 deaths in Double Creek Estates, one person was seriously injured and less than a dozen people suffered minor injuries after the tornado.[29] The tornado left no damage indicators with which to judge higher winds, but video of the tornado shows extremely violent rotation and updraft winds comparable to other F5 tornadoes. Newspaper articles from 1997 reported wind speeds from 400-500mph. There is currently no way of knowing the true wind speed of this tornado, partly due to its unusually slow forward motion, but many researchers considered the Jarrell storm to be the most violent tornado, in terms of damage intensity, that they had ever seen. [30] There were 27 fatalities, all in the Double Creek Estates neighborhood." Of course, no wind speed instrument can survive those speeds. (except the ones embedded in jets).  BTW Dayton got upgraded by FEMA when they assessed the damage. We're now an EF4.  Not that it matters much- almost no residential construction can withstand an EF3 without significant damage, much less EF4.  Sadly, the most significant damage in the city was in a lower middle class (if that) area- folks that probably are ill equipped and probably under insured or uninsured for that type of damage. Depending on what storm track  I want to believe the tornado missed me by the range of 2-4 miles.