Barn-buster windstorm really was a tornado

On the day after a tornado struck her farm, Shirley Kaelin, of Buckley, tried to do some cleanup.

But there was so much to do: The barn reduced to rubble. The silo a pile of bricks. A trailer tipped over. A restored 1952 GMC pickup partly crushed when the garage roof fell on it.

"It's such a mess," Kaelin said. "It's unbelievable."

The Kaelins were among those in the Enumclaw and Buckley area recovering from what the National Weather Service officially confirmed Monday was a tornado with wind speeds estimated at up to 110 mph.

Sunday afternoon's tornado capped a day with record rainfall and a storm that ripped off roofs and siding from several buildings, tore out trees by the roots, and knocked out power to about 1,200 Puget Sound Energy (PSE) customers.

No injuries were reported.

Power had been restored to all but 90 customers by Sunday evening; the rest had power by Monday morning, PSE said.

Meteorologists determined that what hit the South King County and northern Pierce County area was indeed a tornado after seeing that the damage was in a spiral pattern, said meteorologist Ni Cushmeer.

Otherwise, "if everything's blown down in one direction, then it's a strong wind," she said.

Meteorologists classified the tornado as an EF-1 in intensity on a scale that runs from 0 for the weakest to 5 for the strongest.

The EF scale rates the intensity of tornadoes based on damage. A tornado rated EF-0 might damage trees or sheds. One rated EF-5 — "there's pretty much nothing left standing," Cushmeer said.

Washington state averages about two to three tornadoes a year, most in Eastern Washington and most no higher than EF-2, Cushmeer said.

A 1972 tornado that touched down in Vancouver, Wash., appears to have been the state's most severe. Six people were killed, more than 300 injured, and property damage exceeded $5 million.

At Buckley, Shirley Kaelin and her husband, Art, weren't even home when Sunday's tornado hit. They were having their 62nd anniversary dinner celebration in Auburn.

When they drove home and saw their children and grandchildren all there, "at first I thought: 'Oh, gee, they came to celebrate our anniversary,' " Shirley Kaelin said.

But then they looked left, where their farm is. "My husband said, 'What the hell happened to the barn?' " Kaelin said. Most of it was down, and the roof was gone.

Fortunately, their animals — cows, calves, bulls — seem to have scattered before the barn was destroyed, she said. So far, they've found all but six of them.

"We'll probably find them," she said. "I hope they're alive."

On Monday, she and her husband did a little cleaning up, though they're waiting for the insurance company to send someone over to have a look first. And they talked to plenty of news reporters.

"We lost a lot of trees. We lost a lot of things," she said. But "our home was not destroyed. ... We are lucky in a lot of ways. That's the way we feel."

Janet I. Tu: 206-464-2272 or jtu@seattletimes.com