Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, May 5, 1990 TAG: 9005050299
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RON BROWN and TRACY VAN MOORLEHEM STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
A nursing supervisor at Waynesboro Community Hospital reported that two men were killed in a mobile home in Swoope as high winds and rain ripped through several rural residential communities.
Bob Riley, a resident of Swoope, said two men were killed when two separate trailers blew apart on Virginia 707.
One of the men, identified as Pete Strickler, was in a single-wide mobile home with his wife and two children when the storm hit.
"It just tore it to smithereens," Riley said. Bits of the trailer were blown about a mile away.
Strickler's wife and two children were taken to the hospital, according to Riley, who lives next to the trailers.
A second man, who was not identified, died after a camper parked near the Strickler mobile home blew away. A second man in the camper was taken to the hospital.
A nursing supervisor at King's Daughters' Hospital confirmed that two people were dead on arrival.
Firefighters from Craigsville and Augusta Springs reported extensive damage from the storm, which cut at least a 1-mile path in some areas.
King's Daughters' Hospital in Staunton reported seven injured people had been brought there. Waynesboro Community had treated three.
King's Daughters' Hospital was told to expect more injured as rescue workers continued their search for missing people. Firefighters reported that one large Baptist church in Craigsville was moved about 2 feet from its foundation.
Roofs had been twisted from several buildings and trees with trunks 3 or 4 feet thick were "broken like twigs," a firefighter said.
Power outages were reported in the Craigsville area.
An Augusta County Sheriff's Department dispatcher said the damage appeared to have occurred in a rural residential area in the corridor along Virginia 42 between Augusta Springs and Craigsville. A funnel cloud was reported at 7:22 p.m.
"I've never seen such force in my life," said Drew Campbell, a volunteer fireman in Craigsville. He estimated at least eight houses, two businesses and a church were damaged.
The area was littered with glass, tin, limbs and other debris.
Campbell said the roof was blown off one of the stores.
Bill Martin, another Craigsville fireman, said the storm cut a 1-mile-wide path for more than three miles near and through the Augusta Springs community. He said the tornado started at the peak of Little River Mountain before crossing a valley and going up another mountain to Swoope.
Martin said the storm leveled several buildings, including the Augusta Springs Volunteer Fire Department.
Another person at the station reported that firefighters and rescue workers from Goshen, Craigsville, Churchville and Staunton were working in the area.
Cameron Powell, chief of the Churchville Volunteer Fire Department, said the area had a "tremendous amount of rain."
"You couldn't see 50 feet in front of you," Powell said.
Jim Wiesmueller of the National Weather Service office in Washington, whose jurisdiction includes Augusta County, said it was "rather surprising that storms of the intensity that we are seeing would have produced a tornado. It's possibly straight-line winds."
Wiesmueller said severe thunderstorms "can obviously produce damaging winds, depending on their intensity of course. Severe thunderstorms can produce winds over 60 mph and much stronger.
"Thunderstorms we're seeing around here, however, aren't of that caliber for the most part. Most of the heavier activity has been in the Ohio-Tennessee Valley and parts west."
The Weather Service office in Richmond said a tornado was reported by the Amelia County Sheriff's Department at 7:43 p.m. Two houses were damaged and many trees knocked down, but no injuries were reported, the Weather Service said.
The Associated Press contributed information for this story.
by CNB