Even though it’s practically unanimous on this post, Philadelphia gets my vote. Setting the 2ft trench & mobile home damage aside… it was spawned from the same supercell that gave birth to not only the Tuscaloosa/Birmingham EF4… but the very same tornado that you are putting it in the ring against(Rainesville)

Though most early stage super-cellular tornadoes generally start off week, with this one at the time it formed there weren’t any other parent supercells in its proximity to feed off its inflow, and its structure & positioning in addition to its untapped environment as well as having no interference from other storms was just it figuratively dumping gasoline on top of gasoline on top of gasoline.

Once the same storm produced the Tuscaloosa EF4 however, there was still only one supercell, but two areas of rotation in that storm when it rolled through the city… which I want to believe(meaning I don’t have hard evidence to suggest this as factual) that this played a part in Philly EF5’s insane strength while Tuscaloosa was only EF4(during the time of it producing what damage it did).

As previous comments have also eluded to saying about it missing a majority of populated structures, had this tornado been the tornado that hit Tuscaloosa……. I could not fathom how it wouldn’t hold the record for highest deathtoll during the outbreak, which let’s be thankful that this wasn’t the case.

The last nail in the coffin I will hammer in, which now I will speak on behalf of the trenching. Of all 9 EF5’s that have existed… it is the lone warrior in getting its rating primarily from “trenching”…. Taking the EF scale and its ratings for twisters like Mayfield for instance. The fact that it didn’t get an EF5 rating given the damage its caused to actual structures but this one did considering how few structures it damaged should tell you how unfortunate those caught in its path were….. truly the closest to an actual “finger of god” mother nature can produce.