On the evening on 18 July 1996 a powerful tornado, rated 5 on the Fujita scale, rampaged through Oakfield, Wisconsin. The wind-speeds recorded for this event clocked in at around 200 miles per hour within the village and at over 250 miles per hour just outside of the village limits. This provided sufficient force to send two cars careening 400 feet through the air. All told, this particular catastrophe damaged or destroyed 190 buildings within the small Fond du Lac County village. No fatalities were recorded as a result of the storm, although there were at least a dozen reported injuries. The total monetary damage from this storm was estimated to be between 40 and 50 million dollars. Perhaps one of the most inconvenient post-storm clean ups came from the Friday Canning Co. which had hundreds of thousands of its canned goods scattered about.
Contributed by Jamison Fox
Course: Modern Global Environmental History
Instructor: Dr. Wilko Graf von Hardenberg
University of Wisconsin–Madison, US
- Crowther, Hugh G. "Tornadoes!: The 1996 Season." Weatherwise 50, no. 2 (1997): 10–18.