DESTRUCTION—This pile of rubbish is all that remained Saturday morning of a mobile home that was destroyed by a tornado last Friday night on Osee Road in the Sparta Fire District, just off Pleasant Home Road. Four people were hurt in the incident: two adults and two children. More photos appear on Page 9A. Photo by Laura Thornburg

Tornados tear through north end of Alleghany

A pair of tornados hit parts of the Ennice community late Friday night into early Saturday morning, injuring four people and causing major damage to two mobile or modular homes, four houses and numerous barns and outbuildings. In addition, several other homes sustained lesser amounts of damage.

The larger of the two suspected tornados cut a path across the northern end of the county that was 200 yards wide and five miles long, said Emergency Management Director Gerald Leftwich. The storm first touched down on Osee Road and damage was found from there all the way to Fox Hunter's Paradise on the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Among the more dramatic views of the storm damage was a swath of destroyed trees that could be seen from both Jarvis Road and N.C. 18, where the storm had sheared off the tops of trees and even uprooted and hurled trees for hundreds of yards. Devastating storm damage was also visible in many other areas of the community.

As the storm developed, local emergency responders didn't at first know it was a tornado. "We knew we had something big," he said. "We suspected it was a tornado, but we didn't know. We just knew we had some people out there who needed help."

The first call came in to dispatch at 11:56 p.m. last Friday night (May 8) concerning trees down on N.C. 18 near Crab Creek Road. Shortly thereafter, a second call was received at 12:10 a.m. Saturday morning concerning a mobile home blown across the road on Osee Road. According to the dispatch logs, one person was in the road, one in a field and there were two children in need of medical attention. The first tornado, thought to have been an EF2 storm with winds of 110-120 miles per hour, passed all the way across the northern end of the county.

According to Phil Hysell, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, issued a statement saying that the storm was a low-end EF2 tornado that first touched down on Osee Road and was intermittently on the ground for about five miles moving East-Southeast before lifting off the ground between Old Barrett Road and Glade Valley Road.

The former ‘F' or Fujita scale for tornados was updated in 2007 to the "Enhanced Fujita Scale," which helps meteorologist better estimate the wind speeds associated with a tornado, said Hysell. Tornados now are ranked EF0 through EF5, with EF5 being the strongest storm. Meanwhile, the second storm, thought to have been an EF1 storm, was called in to dispatch at 12:24 a.m. when a funnel cloud was spotted near Old Barrett Road.

Hysell said that the second tornado touched down briefly toward Jarvis Road and lifted near Early Road. Hysell noted that the time of the tornado was most likely between 11:46 and 11:48 p.m. Friday.

Damage found near the Blue Ridge Parkway was determined to have been caused by straight-line winds from the thunderstorm, not tornado activity.

Hysell reported seeing collapsed silos, damaged homes and other structures. He estimated the time of the larger storm between 11:44 and 11:52 p.m. last Friday night.

Hysell said both tornados were active at around the same time, with one slightly further south than the other.

Injuries Reported

Glade Creek Fire Chief David Higgins said his department was dispatched to help clear N.C. 18 and worked through the night.

Meanwhile, the Sparta-Alleghany Volunteer Fire Department responded to a call on Osee Road where the first tornado had destroyed the mobile home and left four injured.

Sparta Fire Chief Terry McGrady said the scene was unlike any he had ever been to.