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Thursday, October 28, 2010

Second October Tornado Confirmed In Stokes County

Residents Report Downed Trees, Damage, No Injuries

POSTED: 10:23 pm EDT October 27, 2010
UPDATED: 5:19 pm EDT October 28, 2010
In the span of two days, two F1 tornadoes touched down in Stokes County less than 10 miles from each other, National Weather Service officials confirmed Thursday. Click To View More Images The second of the two tornadoes struck at about 7:05 p.m. Wednesday, causing more damage than the night before.The storm, rated an F1 on the Fujita scale that measures storm intensity, packed maximum winds of 100 mph and caused the most damage in the Forrest Oaks community, where as many as 25 homes sustained some damage. Six homes sustained major damage with portions of their roofs being blown entirely off.The 150- to 200-yard-wide tornado touched down near Kennsington Avenue, then tracked northeast about three quarters of a mile to Spainhour Road with several intermittent touchdowns between, NWS officials said.
 
 
Bea Rutledge was playing a game in her dining room with neighbors when the tornado struck the neighborhood, tearing away part of her roof and soaking the interior of the home in rain.On nearby Forrest Glen Court, WWII veteran Jason Huffman said he heard the tornado coming despite having lost 80 percent of his hearing during the war."You have to be stone deaf not to have heard that," Huffman said. It sounded like a train more or less."Mark Easter said he and his fiancee had to rush out of their house before it was washed away by the tornado.“I heard the floors popping. I heard the walls popping. I looked up and saw the cinder-blocked walls started opening up at the mortar joints,” Easter said. “I hollered at my fiance who was upstairs to get out of the house now, and she ran out of the house and I ran out of the back door of the basement. I wasn't outside (for) 10 seconds and the whole front, the basement wall just caved in.”The tornado also ripped through a parking lot of a Pizza Hut just off Highway 52. Driver Neil Speas said he felt the wind coming, but didn't expect that anything huge or dangerous was about to happen until the wind picked up his truck and turned it upside down. “The cab of my truck was just caving in, and I'm like, 'Oh no.' Then next thing I know, my truck's over on my side and I'm just dazed for a minute and I'm sitting there thinking, 'What happened?'” Speas said.The night before an F1 tornado touched down less than 10 miles away on Mountain View Church Road.That tornado knocked down trees and power lines, damaging about 15 structures and four cars. A tree also fell on a car port, flattening it.WXII meteorologist Brian Slocum said October tornadoes are uncommon in North Carolina, with most tornadoes spawning during the spring months.No injuries were reported with either storm.

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