After Salisbury tornado, recovering and feeling 'lucky'

Businesses and residents continued to clean up Tuesday, Aug. 8, after a tornado tore through south Salisbury on Monday, overturning cars, uprooting trees and downing power lines.

The tornado ripped off part of the canopy over the Sunoco gas pumps at the Cheers beer and wine store on Route 13 and Dogwood Drive. It also blew away part of the sign, said employee Kyle Anderson.

“It’s not terrible,” he said. “We were kind of lucky.”

On the other side of the intersection, the wind tossed cars around the parking lot at 1400 South, blew air handling units off the roof of Hopper’s Tap House and demolished an empty commercial building, Mayor Jake Day said during a Tuesday morning briefing at police headquarters.

RELATED: Likely tornado causes major damage in south Salisbury

Peter Hutchinson, a manager at Cheers, said a large piece of corrugated metal from the demolished building blew onto a grassy area outside his store.

“It’s probably 20 feet long,” he said.

National Weather Service personnel came to Salisbury on Tuesday morning to survey the damage and later confirmed that an EF-1 tornado ripped through a 150-yard-wide stretch over roughly a mile that started at the corner of Route 13 and Dogwood Drive, headed north-northeast across the Salisbury University athletic fields and ended up in the Princeton Homes neighborhood off College Avenue.

“It was a relatively narrow, short-lived tornado,” said Bill Sammler, warning coordination meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Wakefield, Virginia.

No warning

Residents and city officials said they were caught off guard by the tornado, which hit Salisbury without warning. Day said he received an alert on his phone for a severe thunderstorm, but he didn’t know a tornado had touched down until he got a call from Fire Chief Rick Hoppes.

The tornado brought 105-mph winds as it touched down initially on the north side of Salisbury University's East Campus near South Division Street and East College Avenue, according to the National Weather Service. It struck the 1400 South strip mall, tossed vehicles around in the parking lot and caused minor damage to nearby buildings.

A concrete building in the area collapsed due to bay doors on the building being open. Wind entered the structure, causing it to collapse. “It was in this area near the university where the tornado was most intense, at the time of initial touchdown,” according to the Weather Service report.

RELATED: Our eyewitness accounts of likely Salisbury tornado

The tornado then tracked north-northeast, damaging a home on Rogers Street before lifting off the ground before it could cross Snow Hill Road near the Elks Club Golf Course, the Weather Service report said.

The mayor said that in his 35 years, he doesn’t recall a tornado ever touching down in Salisbury, although there was a microburst in the Camden Avenue area in the 1990s.

Just before the tornado hit, the weather service issued a severe thunderstorm warning for the area with a note at the bottom that residents should remain alert for tornadoes.

Sammler said the storm over Salisbury showed rotation in the lowest part, not at a higher altitude normally seen in tropical systems, and it wasn’t a “classic Plains-type tornado” where meteorologists see rotation 10 to 15 minutes in advance.

“It really didn’t give us much clue as to when it was going to happen until about the time it actually touched down,” he said.

‘We were blessed’

City public works crews arrived on the scene soon after the storm hit at about 1:40 p.m. and continued to clear tree limbs and debris until 9 p.m. Monday, said Tom Stevenson, director of field operations.

Delmarva Power crews also arrived to take care of power lines that had been knocked down by falling tree limbs

By Tuesday morning, power had been restored and the streets in the Princeton Homes neighborhood had been cleaned up, Day said.

“There’s no evidence on the street there was a storm,” he said.

IN WORCESTER: Officials: No tornado in Worcester County

But evidence of the tornado was still apparent on private property, Day said. Several vehicles were crushed under trees, and property owners were still dealing with branches and debris in their yards. Residents who need to dispose of debris should gather it and place it in their front yards behind the sidewalk, and it will be collected on or before Monday, Aug. 14, city officials said.

Two houses in the neighborhood were condemned because of damages. One on College Avenue had its front porch torn off by the winds, while a large loblolly pine tree fell on the roof of a house on Princeton Street.

The landlord at both locations quickly worked to relocate the tenants to other houses, Day said.

The tenants also were being assisted by the Red Cross.

Francisco Salomon, who had rented the house on Princeton Street for eight years, said he wasn’t at home when the tree hit the back section of the roof.

“I came back and saw water coming in the house,” he said.

Day and Police Chief Barbara Duncan, who were walking the streets after the storm, joined a group of Salomon’s friends and neighbors to help move the family’s personal belongings out of the house.

The owners of the Vittles Food Truck announced on Facebook they wanted to help families affected by the tornado.“This week we will donate 10% of our street vending sales to help with any expenses they may have as a result of this tornado,” they said, adding that they planned to contact the mayor for suggestions of where to send the money.

In spite of the damages, no major injuries or deaths were reported.

"Really, we were blessed and we're lucky it wasn't worse," Day said.

Twitter: @LizHolland5