Weld County Tornado Narrowly Misses Power Plant Near Platteville
PLATTEVILLE, Colo. (CBS4) - Residents from Denver to Greeley got a wild, almost once-in-a-lifetime show from Mother Nature late Monday when an afternoon thunderstorm produced a large, slow-moving landspout tornado in southwestern Weld County. The twister roared across fields and farmland between Firestone and Platteville.
The storm narrowly missed several new neighborhoods in the booming population of the Front Range east of Interstate 25. It also gave a close call to a power plant that serves the area.
Joe Filbert is an employee at the Fort St. Vrain Generating Station just outside of Platteville. He and his co-workers watched in horror while filming the twister as it tore through a farm roughly a quarter of a mile away.
As the massive column of swirling wind was approaching from the south it passed by a house, pulling down power lines and tossing a shed through the air. The contents of that shed were thrown across several fields.
Filbert can be heard in the video saying, "I've got a feeling that is going to go right over us here."
He and a co-worker were quickly trying to decide what they could do for both their safety and the good of the plant as they faced the unthinkable.
Luckily the twister made a slight turn to the right just before reaching the power station and missed it. The tornado gave Filbert and his co-workers a story and a visual that they will probably never forget.