Watford City Tornado, May 2014: Close-Up Video of the EF2 at an Oil Camp

At about 7:50 p.m. on Monday, May 26, 2014, a tornado touched down at an oil workers' camp just south of Watford City, North Dakota. Someone at the scene filmed it at close range as it crossed the camp, and the clip, posted to YouTube as "Extreme Close Up Tornado - Watford City, ND", spread around the world within days.

The Watford City tornado of May 26, 2014

Watford City is the seat of McKenzie County in western North Dakota, in the heart of the Bakken oil field. During the oil boom of the early 2010s, thousands of workers arrived faster than housing could be built, and many lived in "man camps": clusters of trailers and modular units set up on the edge of town.

The tornado hit one of these camps. It damaged or destroyed 15 trailers and tossed others aside, and a trucker nearby estimated the funnel stayed on the ground for about a minute. Several funnel clouds and baseball-sized hail were reported across the area the same evening.

EF2 rating, injuries and the aftermath

After surveying the damage, the National Weather Service rated the tornado EF2 on the Enhanced Fujita scale, which runs from EF0 to EF5, with preliminary peak winds estimated at 120 mph. EF ratings come from the damage a tornado leaves behind: surveyors match what happened to buildings and trees against engineering benchmarks to estimate wind speed.

Nine people were injured. The most seriously hurt was a 15-year-old girl visiting the camp, who suffered a head injury and was taken to Trinity Health in Minot in critical condition; she was expected to survive. The other eight were treated at McKenzie County Memorial Hospital in Watford City. Several families were displaced, and eight residents spent the night in a shelter. Local emergency officials said the community was fortunate that no one died.

The extreme close-up tornado video

Most tornado footage is shot from a distance, by chasers on a highway or residents watching from a porch. This video is different because the camera is inside the scene: the funnel is a short distance from the person filming, and the buildings in the foreground give it a sense of scale that open-country footage rarely has.

The clip spread quickly through BuzzFeed and other viral sites in the days after the storm, often under headlines asking how the cameraman survived. The answer is partly luck: an EF2 is strong enough to lift trailers off their foundations, and flying debris causes most tornado injuries.

Tornado safety in trailers and mobile homes

Trailers and mobile homes give very little protection in a tornado, even a moderate one. When a warning is issued, leave them for a sturdy building and go to the lowest floor, into an interior room away from windows. Community storm shelters at camps and parks exist for exactly this reason.

Related reading

• Basehunters’ Wyoming Supercell Timelapse, May 2014
• The world's best storm chaser photography
• The Sheyenne River Ice Circle Seen by George Loegering
• The May 2013 Ice Shoves at Mille Lacs and Dauphin Lake

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