COLLEGE PARK, Md. — On Sept. 24, 2001, a strong cold front spawned several tornadoes in the region.
Shortly after 3 p.m., that day, a tornado touched down in Culpeper County in Rixeyville. The small tornado damaged a house in Rixeyville and then went on to strike five miles southwest of Warrenton ─ ripping several roofs off and blowing them onto Route 211 shortly after 3:30 p.m.
The tornado then damaged the roof of a restaurant in Franconia in Fairfax County. The Virginia tornado was later determined to be an F4 with winds over 207 mph.
Shortly after 5 p.m., a funnel cloud was sighted near the Fourteenth Street Bridge. At 5:24 p.m., an F3 tornado touched down in College Park.
The College Park tornado had winds over 200 mph making it a strong F3 but would now be an EF 5 on the new scale. Tornado intensity had been ranked on the Fujita Scale which was updated in 2007 and replaced by the "Enhanced Fujita Scale."
There were two fatalities in College Park. The two daughters of Pat Marlatt, a professor at the university, drove away in their car unaware of the imminent danger. The twister picked the car up and slammed it to the ground several hundred yards away in the woods.
The MFRI building, next to the Performing Arts Center, was destroyed. Everyone in the MFRI building survived. One student was thrown some 80 yards and survived. One woman grabbed a table leg and the carpet on the concrete floor to keep from being blown away and survived.
It is amazing that everyone survived considering the building was simply flattened. Little did we know that this tornado was just a harbinger of a stronger tornado that would hit La Plata during another severe weather outbreak in April 2002.
