Scary: Houses Flying In Powerful Tornadoes

That large piece of debris on the right side
of this still from the Pilger, Nebraska tornado
is apparently a house.  

Remember that double tornado that hit and trashed the little town of Pilger, Nebraska earlier this month?  

When I saw videos of the tornado, I was struck by a huge piece of debris the tornado spat out as it tore through the town.

Analysis of the video shows that piece of debris was an entire house, or at least most of one.  

I wasn't able to confirm from any sources whether anyone was in the house when it sailed through the air.

There are pictures of a damaged house off its foundation, but I have doubts if it's the one that flew through the air. I'd think it would have disintegrated when it hit the ground.

This house in Bertram, Texas flew 100 feet through the
air during a tornado earlier this month.
The family inside suffered minor injuries.  

However, there was another recent, better documented case of a tornado that sent an occupied house flying.

 In early June, a house in Bertram, Texas flew 100 feet through the air during a tornado and landed 100 feet from its original location.

A family was inside, but the house was well constructed and ended up largely intact when the tornado ended. The family survived with minor injuries.

All this sounds like something out of the Wizard of Oz.

In a sense, the owners of these houses were lucky. Usually, homes disintegrate in a severe tornado, scattering possessions far and wide. The owners of these two homes were able to retrieve some of their belongings from the destroyed homes.

Here's what typically happens to a house in a strong tornado, in a surveillance video taken from a gas station during an Illinois tornado last November. (And it's amazing the gas station remained mostly intact)



Additionally, here's another video of the double tornado earlier this month in Nebraska. This one was not taken by a storm chaser, but a local resident. In some ways it's better than a storm chaser video. No yelling, no shaky cameras or blurry images of trying to catch up with a twister in a car.

This one is just a guy watching two terrifying tornadoes roar past him.