1997 Jarrell tornado

The 1997 Jarrell tornado was an exceptionally violent and destructive F5 tornado that struck the community of Jarrell, Texas in the afternoon hours of May 27, killing 27 people and injuring a further 12. The tornado caused $40.1 million (1997 USD) in damages, and was the subject of multiple well-known photographs, earning the tornado the nickname of the "Dead Man Walking".

The multiple-vortex tornado stalled over the Double Creek Estates housing subdivision for approximately 3 minutes at high-end F5 strength, causing arguably some of the most severe tornado damage ever recorded. NIST Studies on the tornado have been conducted in the years and decades after the event.

As of 2024, this tornado is Texas' most recent F5 or EF5 tornado. The tornado was the fourth-deadliest of the 1990s in the United States, only being surpassed by the 1990 Plainfield tornado that killed 29, the 1998 Birmingham tornado that killed 32, and the 1999 Bridge Creek–Moore tornado that killed 36. It was also the only F5 tornado of 1997, and the next F5 would occur on April 8 of the following year.

Meteorological synopsis
The thunderstorm that caused the formation of the Jarrell tornado first began to develop to the west of Temple, Texas earlier on May 27. Several small tornadoes were observed in Bell County as a result of this, and an F3 tornado touched down near Lake Belton. A mesocyclone was slowly becoming more visible, and the National Weather Service began to track it as it headed into Williamson County. The now-strong supercell produced two short-lived tornadoes – both F2 intensity – north of Jarrell at 3:25 p.m. and 3:35 p.m.; the latter of the two was a multiple-vortex tornado and lifted at 3:39 p.m. A tornado warning was issued for Williamson County at 3:30 p.m. in response to the storm's approaching Jarrell. The warning was put into effect for a duration of one hour. Local warning sirens went off about 10–12 minutes before the tornado struck. The Jarrell tornado finally touched down, after all of the conditions were set into place for a strong, violent tornado.

Tornado summary
The Austin/San Antonio National Weather Service forecast office issued a tornado warning for most of Williamson County at 3:30 p.m. in response to the storm's approach; the warning was put into effect for one hour. This was the first tornado warning of the day issued for the office's warning area and warned that "the city of Jarrell is in the path of this storm". Local warning sirens went off about 10–12 minutes before the tornado struck.

The extremely destructive part of the tornado's evolution was preceded by the formation of multiple short-lived, small, and rope-like funnel clouds. These have been theorized and are now commonly accepted as being separate tornadoes from the Jarrell tornado, but may have also been part of the main tornado.

An aerial survey conducted by the Birmingham, Alabama, office of the National Weather Service included the damage caused by the earlier F2 tornadoes—mostly to trees and roads—as part of the overall Jarrell tornado path. Some reports also include the F1 tornado near Prairie Dell as an earlier continuation of the Jarrell tornado.

Formation
The tornado officially touched down within the Williamson County line 3 mi north of Jarrell as a faint, rope-shaped funnel swathed in large amounts of dust. The tornado began to undergo a dramatic intensification as it took on the shape of a "dead man walking", with multiple subvortices creating a human-like shape at approximately 3:40 p.m.

Traffic along Interstate 35 came to a stop as the tornado descended nearby. The Texas Highway Patrol also stopped traffic on both sides of the interstate under the expectation that the tornado would cross the highway; it ultimately moved parallel to Interstate 35, and no injuries were reported on the highway.

Tracking into Jarrell
Tracking south-southwest, the tornado quickly intensified and grew in width. The exact size of the tornado was hard to pinpoint, as F5 damage was first recorded as it widened. It is unusual, as F5 damage was documented relatively early into its lifespan and retained until almost the end of the tornado. Its intense winds scoured the ground and stripped pavement from County Roads 308, 305, and 307; the thickness of the asphalt pavement was roughly 3 in. A culvert plant at the corner of Country Roads 305 and 307 collapsed. Nearby, a similar plant and a mobile home sustained some damage, with the latter struck by a 2×4 piece of lumber.

Multiple people were sheltering in a mobile home far south of the culvert plant, but later decided to evacuate to a frame house to take cover. The frame house was directly hit by the tornado moments later, killing everyone inside. The tornado narrowly missed the mobile home that they were originally taking shelter inside, leaving it with minor damage. The mobile home would have likely saved their lives. Some of the most extreme damage at this location was inflicted to a small metal-framed recycling plant that was directly hit and destroyed, with only several twisted and bent metal beams remaining.

Impact at Double Creek Estates
The tornado turned slightly, entering the Double Creek Estates at high-end F5 intensity. It grew to its maximum width, estimated to be around 3/4 mi. Post-event surveys and eyewitness accounts have suggested that the tornado began to slow its pace, which contributed to the extremely violent damage observed there. The tornado immediately began to destroy structures and homes as it hit multiple smaller streets at the northeastern edge of the Estates. The exact time of this is unknown, but timekeeping devices and synced videos have shown that this most likely happened at 3:48 p.m.

The entire Double Creek Estates was subjected to extreme winds for three minutes due to the "stalling" pattern of the tornado, which likely exacerbated the damage. Multiple well-built homes on Double Creek Drive were completely swept away and clean slabs were left with lack of any large debris. Foundations in the direct path of the tornado had lost all of their sill plates and some of them were partially scoured. The tornado was heavily documented during this phase, and was most likely at its most visible point in its lifespan. Grassy fields in this area also sustained extreme ground scouring of up to 18 in. As a result of this, the path was heavily studied due to its visibility and scarring into the ground.

Cars were picked up by the tornado and mangled beyond recognition, and at least six recognizable cars were found over 300 yd away but crushed and covered in mud. Many were never recovered, and are presumed to have been "ground up" inside the debris ball. Nearby trees were completely debarked, with one small tree documented to have had an electrical cord pierced through its trunk.

Three entire families were killed in this area: the Igo Family (five members), the Smith Family (three members) and the Moehring Family (four members).

Damage to Jarrell
Thirty-eight structures were obliterated in the Double Creek Estates. Three businesses adjacent to Double Creek Estates were also destroyed. In total, the tornado dealt $10–20 million in damage to the neighborhood. The tornado turned slightly towards the south-southwest after traversing Double Creek Estates.

The tornado then traversed County Road 396, inflicting F4+ damage (area was never accurately surveyed), destroying structures in its path and denuding trees. It tracked through a field, causing deep ground scouring before Land Cemetery Road, destroying a cemetery in the process at an unknown intensity.

Dissipation
The damage in these areas was extremely sporadic and unusual; and in one case, a mobile home suffered only minor damage while an adjacent house lost half of its roof. Metal buildings were unroofed along County Road 305 south of Jarrell. The road's guardrail was impaled by wooden planks thrown by the strong winds.

The tornado then again crossed County Road 305. It began to track parallel to Spears Ranch Road, before beginning to rapidly weaken and shrink. It hit a few more houses at an unknown intensity, and hit Appaloosa Cove Road before taking on a "pencil" shape and finally dissipating. The NCEI concluded that it had lifted at 3:53 p.m. after remaining on the ground for 13 minutes and traversing 5.1 mi.

The path itself was extremely unusual, as it tracked southwestward, instead of northeastward, which is the path that tornadoes normally take. Other tornadoes in the outbreak also took southerly paths.

Aftermath
In the six days following the event, the Office of the Federal Coordinator for Meteorological Services and Supporting Research (OOTCFMSASR) conducted multiple surveys from the air and on the ground to survey the track of the tornado and the damage caused by it. The Texas branch of the Civil Air Patrol also helped, and in the end the tornado garnered an F5 rating, which was challenged by the NIST.

The tornado knocked out power in Jarrell, effectively stunting communications between EMS and residents. Cell phones were not functional, and the loved ones of residents became increasingly concerned due to an inability to communicate.

Emergency services were quick to arrive in Jarrell, and the damage was so intense that they almost drove past Double Creek Estates, unaware that houses had stood there. The Double Creek Estates subdivision quickly became the focal point of search-and-rescue and recovery efforts, which were aided by civilians and volunteer workers.

Support came in from all over the country, and millions of dollars were donated to aid Jarrell. Texas Governor George W. Bush visited Jarrell days after the tornado and stated that the "damage was mind-boggling."

Search-and-rescue operations
In the minutes after the tornado, emergency management, police, and other volunteers began search-and-rescue operations in Jarrell. Many different agencies aided in the search-and-rescue process, including the Texas Department of Public Safety Police, Texas National Guard, and other smaller agencies. Relief operations, which covered 211 homes and persons damaged or wounded in the tornado, cost an estimated $250,000; community donations covered at least $200,000 of the expenses.

The Jarrell Volunteer Fire Department organized a temporary morgue. Although a death toll of 30 people was initially reported, that figure was later revised to a final tally of 27.

Rebuilding
County Road 305 and Double Creek Drive have been repaved multiple times since the event. Many businesses have rebuilt and returned to normalcy, while other lots that were completely wiped away in the tornado were abandoned.

A memorial park, which includes twenty-seven trees to commemorate the victims and two baseball fields, was built on land donated by relatives of the Igo family, who all perished in the tornado. Many residents who had initially remained in the aftermath of the tornado later moved away due to rebuilding costs and other factors. Many residents did stay, although the population has not grown much since the event.

Fatalities
Out of the 131 residents who lived in or near Double Creek Estates, 27 were killed. The remains of these people were found at over 30 locations, and the majority of the deaths were reported in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report as being caused by bodily and head trauma and one fatality was reported to have been caused by asphyxia. Bodily remains were later found at 30 locations, and the physical trauma inflicted on some of the tornado victims was so extreme that first responders reportedly had difficulty distinguishing human remains from the remains of animals at the site.

The sheer strength and intensity of the tornado, as it was in Jarrell, gave the people in its direct path little time to get to safety. Most of the homes that were located in Double Creek Estates at the time were constructed on a slab foundation and lacked of a basement. Up to nineteen people had sought refuge in a single storm cellar.

Many residents of the Double Creek Estates had still followed the recommended safety procedures, but were still killed because of the strength of the tornado. Some people had chosen to evacuate ahead of the tornado, which may have saved lives. Despite the near-complete destruction of houses on the edge of the tornado, some walls were left standing, protecting several residents. One survivor holed up in a bathtub and was flung several hundred feet from her house onto a road.

Around 300 cattle grazing in a nearby pasture were killed and some were found 0.25 mi away. Hundreds of these bodies were found dismembered, lacking limbs, decapitated or skinned.

13 people were reported to have been admitted to a hospital after the event, and one person died there. Most of the wounded had abrasions and lacerations due to debris from the tornado. Nine families in Jarrell had more than one member die in the tornado, and the youngest victim was five years old.

After the tornado, multiple residents of Jarrell were interviewed about the tornado and the actions that they took. Many said they were aware of the tornado warnings, and the majority said that they first learned of the warnings through commercial television.

Due to the slow movement and high visibility of the tornado, most of the residents interviewed said they watched the approach of the tornadoes prior to taking shelter. Most said they knew to go to the center of their houses, to avoid staying in mobile homes, and to seek shelter rather than trying to flee the tornadoes. These actions would have saved lives, but in the case of Jarrell tornado became useless.

Documentation
The tornado was heavily documented during its lifetime, making it a focal point of research for the NWS and other weather agencies. Multiple videos exist of the tornado, showing the fast rotation and heavy debris cloud that engulfed the tornado during its maximum strength.

"Dead Man Walking" photograph
The Jarrell tornado was the subject of one of the most famous pieces of tornado media ever taken, now known as the "Dead Man Walking". Scott Beckwith took the famous photograph, which has become notorious for closely resembling the grim reaper.

The image consists of the tornado, shrouded in debris, with the main vortex and an adjacent subvortice making "leg" shapes near the bottom of the tornado, giving it the appearance of a giant silhouette walking across the ground. A third subvortice separate from the main funnel is also seen, resembling that of the blade of a reaper's scythe. The image has been widely called an example of pareidolia. It is one of 8 photographs taken in a sequence as the tornado grew in size.

The photo has received international mainstream attention and has gained it and many other similar tornadoes the nickname of the "Dead Man Walking tornado". Many other spin-off images have been produced, including a photograph of the 2013 El Reno tornado. "Dead man walking" tornadoes are now generally referred to multi-vortex tornadoes with "legs", but the Jarrell tornado helped popularize the term.

Videos
Multiple famous videos have been taken of the tornado, including one by photojournalist Scott Guest, who captured the earlier tornadoes and main tornado forming. Many videos of the entire event exist, and all have been heavily studied.

Other media
In the aftermath of the tornado, multiple books and publications were released, which detail the stories of survivors. A documentary, titled "The Jarrell Tornado: 20 Years Later" was released in 2017, and shows footage from Scott Guest and Tim Marshall, both of whom were photographers and videographers in Jarrell during the event.

Damage
Between May 29 and June 1, the Office of the Federal Coordinator for Meteorological Services and Supporting Research carried out aerial and ground surveys of the tornadic damage in Texas in coordination with the Texas Wing Civil Air Patrol.

The Jarrell tornado damage was classified as F5 severity throughout most of the tornado's path. Approximately $40 million in damage was inflicted upon property with another $100,000 inflicted upon crops. Twelve people were injured by the storm in addition to the twenty-seven killed. Due to the unusual southwestward motion of the thunderstorm that caused the tornado, the sequence of weather events experienced by those affected was in the opposite order of typical tornadic events: the tornado arrived first, followed by the hail, wind, and rain of the parent thunderstorm.

Despite the violence of the tornado and the presence of its associated mesocyclone aloft, the thunderstorm did not exhibit a distinct hook echo on weather radar typically associated with such tornadoes. This may have also been caused by the unusual southwestward motion of the thunderstorm, resulting in the tornado's placement in an atypical position relative to the thunderstorm's motion.

Reactions
Then-governor of Texas George W. Bush declared Williamson County a disaster area, and during a visit to Jarrell on May 28, stated that "it was the worst tornado I've ever seen". U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison also visited Jarrell and Cedar Park. Bush later requested federal aid for Williamson and Bell counties with support from Hutchinson.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency elected not to provide federal aid, citing the contributions from private and state sources. Instead, the Small Business Administration and U.S. Department of Agriculture made available loans for the rebuilding of homes, farms, and ranches.

Case studies
Multiple in-depth studies have been conducted on the tornado, which detail what happened on May 27, and what caused the outbreak and subsequent Jarrell tornado to unfold.

American Meteorological Society (AMS)
The American Meteorological Society (AMS) conducted a case study on the event. It discussed the meteorological conditions that caused the event and the significance of the Jarrell tornado.

National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
A case study and critique was published by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), which covered the structural damage caused by the tornado and the track that it left. The NIST also published a detailed critique of the Fujita Scale as a direct result of the Jarrell tornado, which was at the time rated an F5. The critique stated that:

"We ascribe the NWS rating to the failure of the Fujita tornado intensity scale to account explicitly for the dependence of wind speeds causing specified types of damage or destruction upon the following two structural engineering factors: (1) quality of construction, defined as degree of conformity to applicable standards requirements, and (2) the basic design wind speed at the geographical location of interest."

The NIST had claimed that the Fujita Scale failed to account for critical pointers in the assessment of the Jarrell tornado. The case study concluded that some of the homes at Double Creek Estates did have small structural integrity issues, which includes factors such as a lack of sufficient anchor bolts and steel straps in the house foundations. After the critique was published, the rating was kept as an F5.

University of Wisconsin-Madison
The University of Wisconsin-Madison also published a case study on the event, authored by Andrew Mankowski, which detailed the weather conditions that caused the tornado to form and how it became as violent as it was. The study said that:

"From a synoptic view the main feature was a cold front pushing its way south into Texas. Frontogenesis helped aid in forcing some of the upward vertical motions. From the Gulf of Mexico came a southerly low-level jet bringing warm moist air. This warm moist air from the LLJ helped destabilize the air. The air was already highly unstable with CAPE values reaching 6,000 J/kg."

According to Mankowski, the CAPE values in the atmosphere at the time were extremely unstable, contributing to directional shear which formed the supercells. This caused the violent rotation that eventually produced the Jarrell tornado, and the subsequent strength of the tornado.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which is a U.S. government-affiliated disease control group, produced a study on the casualties of the tornado, which included in-depth explanations of the injuries sustained to the bodies of victims, lengths of hospital stays, among other things. The study and survey concluded that:

"A total of 33 persons presented to six area hospitals for treatment of injuries sustained directly or indirectly by the three tornadoes. Of these 33 persons, 13 (39%) had multiple diagnoses. The categories of injuries included lacerations (18 {55%}), contusions (15 {46%}), abrasions (10 {30%}), strains/sprains/muscle spasms (six {18%}), fractures (two {6%}), penetrating wound (one {3%}), and closed-head injury (one {3%}). The median age of the injured persons was 38 years (range: 1-75 years)."

The case study had also noted the lack of shelters causing multiple of the deaths, and recommended that more storm shelters be installed in Jarrell. Had shelters been implemented before the tornado, many more lives may have been potentially saved, and the tornado showed the importance of storm shelters.

Other studies
Many other groups and organizations did small case studies and surveys in the wake of the tornado, which include the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Regional and Mesocale Meteorology Branch (RaMMB). A small case study by the NOAA had concluded that the Emergency Alert System (EAS) was not activated in a timely manner to warn about the tornado. Many warning systems had also failed, and the study recommended that emergency alerts and tornado warnings be issued earlier.

Gallery
The tornado was one of the most well-documented F5 tornadoes, and many photos and videos exist of the tornado as the event unfolded, and the respective aftermath: