This afternoon around 1:00 it seems there was a small tornado that came through the middle of downtown from west to east along Washington, Lucas, Convention. A whole bunch of trees are down, cars had debris thrown through windows, a small piece of wall fell off the west side of the Lammert Building and smashed a car's windshield. Trees by the St. Patrick Center were uprooted. Two cars parked in front of McMurphy's Grill had windows broken by flying chairs from the outside patio. And, a large section of the east wall of the Renaissance Hotel was ripped off collapsing into the alley and into Washington. Oh, and a dumpster was blown out of the alley on the west side of the hotel and smashed into a moving car on Washington. Pretty nuts. Anybody notice this or were you all busy grinding away in your windowless cubes like my co-workers?
There weren't any reports of a tornado, so I think it was just really strong winds. Luckily no damage to our loft building...but the Renaissance of course is the hotel we had picked for our wedding guests! I walked down after the gym tonight with camera in tow to check it out. The damage was all to the building with the suites, where we did not reserve rooms and is a pretty old building. I liked the outside of it because they painted the brick to make it look like there were windows and architectural designs...dustin always thinks that looks stupid. Well the part of the building that came off was this painted portion, so not sure how they'll replace this one! Here's some shots from Photog Gus:
