It is now Saturday 8/1, and the tornadoes are long gone. The tornado damage was confined to 2 in-town tornadoes. Not bad- there were a total of 6 confirmed yesterday.
One was the one that hit in the Cordova Wolfechase area. That one shredded a Kohls's store, damaged other businesses, and blew out all the windows from the cars in the parking lot. And- a gas station simply vanished.
The other hit in a nearby suburb just south of the state line, and so in Mississippi. Olive Branch was hit with an F2. A friend of mine hit in an affected subdivision. She has some roofing damage, but isn't complaining. 4 houses down from here there was a house; it is gone. Vanished. In another subdivision some homes were destroyed, others badly damaged. Some escaped with just stray fixable damage.
The amazing thing is that nobody was reported either killed or injured.
Initially there was a tornado report in mid town. That may have actually been the result of straight line winds or a microburst. It took down some huge old oak trees. (One thing to remember about Memphis, it is a city in a mostly oak forest. Big winds equal trees down. And poor visibility for seeing something like a tornado. If a chaser were to go looking for a tornado, that chaser is likely to find it when hit by it...)
Yesterday I posted about the storm and tornadoes, but evidently put it in the wrong category. (To webmaster, If I put one in a wrong area, feel free to move it to the correct place. thanks!) Here is a copy/paste of my posting of 7/31.
Jan
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Tornados were in Memphis, TN 7/30/09 1 Day, 1 Hour ago Karma: 0
Yesterday, 7/30/09, was a lively storm day here in Memphis and suburbs! As Murphy's Law would have it, the storm hit during rush hour! There were a total of 6 tornadoes in our area, 2 hit towns with some damage.
Memphis TN is a city in a mostly oak forest- not a good place to try chasing, certainly not during rush hour.
An F0 hit a major intersection in the Cordova area of Germantown, heavily damaged one store, minor damaged several others, blew out the windows of the cars in the parking lot, and just plain 'disappeared' a gas station.
An F2 hit a subdivision in the neighboring town of Olive Branch MS. A few homes are heavily damaged. Several have no roofs. At least one house is just gone...
Amazingly, there were NO casualties in either of the in town twisters.
For photos and videos go to our local TV stations web sites, www.WMVTV.com and WREG.
Did anybody from this site chase any of these tornadoes?
Delighted to say my home was not in the path of either of these twisters. We had heavy rain and some wind, but no tornado.

They do happen in downtowns sometimes. The 2008 Suffolk, Va twister also went through Norfolk Naval Station, close to my school.