The second violent tornado and third overall of the tornado family touched down around 4:00 pm CDT about 5.5 miles to the southwest of Pilger in Stanton County, immediately showing a multi-vortex structure on video. Moving northeast, it rapidly intensified into a large stovepipe stripping corn from a field. It completely destroyed multiple outbuildings as it passed over the Pilger Sand and Gravel Inc. The average forward speed of the tornado was 28 mph. It began to narrow as another tornado developed to its southeast.
Crossing over a river and Highway 15 with an already long swath of heavily disturbed dirt fields, the tornado made a direct hit on Pilger. An exceedingly violent motion was captured on video along with an immense debris cloud. A narrow swath of high-end EF-4 damage occurred when over a half dozen homes were swept away leaving exposed basements or an empty slab; most had no connections, and the ones that did were poor. In fact, video evidence shows one of these homes getting lifted into the tornado and being spun out. An RV was blasted by the debris of one building, stripping away most of the body and dragging the chassis a short distance. Hardwood trees were completely denuded and delimbed, snapped, and in some cases left very heavily debarked by the tornado. A five-year-old died as the mobile home she had been in was obliterated.
The tornado continued through the heart of Pilger, striking a large grain facility in the center of town. Massive silos were crushed, shredded, and large portions were thrown hundreds of yards by the tornado. Cars and trailers were rolled and hurled. One silo hit the eastern section of the Pilger Middle School, taking out the top story of that portion. Multiple businesses were heavily damaged and more homes leveled. A church was swept completely clean as the tornado left the town, leaving nothing but a bare slab and the nearby brick bell stand. Debris was also wind-rowed hundreds of yards from multiple structures as the tornado left the town, churning up more unplanted fields as it moved along.
Tight but clear cycloidal markings were left in fields to the northeast of Pilger as it narrowed a little more, crossing into Cuming County. Very intense tree debarking occurred in a grove of hardwoods. It continued to shrink and weaken as the Pilger East Tornado grew still larger, then suddenly expanded into a large wedge of equal ferocity to its counterpart. An anchor bolted home was completely leveled at high-end EF4 intensity with a car thrown into the basement as the simultaneous EF-4 tornadoes passed within a mile of each other.
Crossing the path of the Pilger East Tornado, the Pilger Tornado continued on a north-northeast path into Wayne County, sweeping another home clean and debarking trees while the other tornado dissipated. Another initially weak tornado developed to its east. Pronounced cycloidal scouring marks were produced as a very sharp turn to the east-northeast was made, becoming very narrow in rope form as yet another home was swept away at EF-4 intensity. It continued in this direction, collapsing a metal truss tower. Destroying another outbuilding and curving still more to the northeast as it rotated around the south side of the stronger Wakefield circulation, the Pilger Tornado dissipated after 39 minutes on the ground.
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