
DATE: Friday, August 1, 1997                TAG: 9707300150

SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER      PAGE: 04   EDITION: FINAL

                                            LENGTH:   38 lines

SOUTH NORFOLK DIGS OUT FROM DANNY'S TORNADOES

South Norfolk had an unwelcome visitor last Thursday afternoon. A tornado spun off of Tropical Storm Danny into the neighborhood at about 1:15 p.m. and hopscotched around Wilson Road and Seaboard Avenue. There were no serious injuries, but a handful of businesses were damaged. And it put a scare into a number of folks. ``Only now I can just talk . . . about it without crying,'' said Sam Dovak a day after the tornado went by Burton Lumber Corp. - where she works as a salesperson - and lifted her into the air and against a wall. Burton Lumber along with D.D. Jones Transfer & Warehouse Co. Inc. received the most damage, according to city estimates. The lumber yard had a roof ripped off of its office and a storage shed destroyed. At the Townsend Brothers fuel company, driver Robert Bell watched the twister lift the 20-by-40-foot sheet-metal shed a foot off the ground. Damage from the twister totaled about $337,200, according to the city's damage assessment team. ILLUSTRATION: Staff photo by HUY NGUYEN

Workers clean up at Transocean Import Co. assembly plant, which

suffered a torn roof, cracked walls and flooding.

``Only now I can just talk . . . about it without crying,'' said Sam

Dovak, a salesperson at Burton Lumber.

Staff photos by D. KEVIN ELLIOTT

John Long, with East Coast Demolition, cleans up a wrecked building

at Burton Lumber Corp. The lumber yard had a roof ripped off its

office and a storage shed destroyed.

Andy Womack, left, Robert Bell and Jimmy VanDyke clean up the

wreckage from a 20-by-40-foot sheet metal shed at Townsend Brothers

fuel company.

Staff photo by