Twister came with a roar, did its damage, departed
FORWARD TWP — Nancy Gill had gone upstairs at her 100-year-old farmhouse on Reibold Road on Thursday night while her disabled husband, Gary, rested downstairs.
“All of a sudden I heard this wild roar,” she said. “I closed the bedroom window and ran downstairs saying, 'It has to be a tornado.'”
Gill was correct. An EF0 tornado that began at a farmhouse on Brownsdale Road near Route 68 tore northwest and ended at her home. The storm struck shortly before 9:30 p.m.
The twister overturned the farm's coal shed and original outhouse, plucked the electric line out of her house, tore shingles from the roofs of several outbuildings, uprooted an apple tree that landed on a grape arbor under which her family had its picnic area, destroyed three 70-year-old pines, ripped the roof from a chicken coop, and strewed debris all over the couple's 16 acres.
“By the time I got to my husband, it was across the road,” Gill said on Friday morning.
Penn Power had the electric service restored by 3:30 a.m., and township workers quickly cleared the downed trees from Reibold Road.
“We're really fortunate with our house,” said Gill. “We haven't gotten a look at the roof yet.”
Gary Gill said he has seen a lot of severe weather in the 50 years he and his wife have lived at their home.
“I've never seen anything like this,” he said.
Nancy Gill said her son's nearby cornfield had stalks flattened in a perfect circle, which to her meant a tornado had come through.
The shale gas well in the field behind the Gill residence suffered only slight damage to the sound wall that surrounds the production pad, said XTO Energy spokesman Amy Dobkin.
She said none of the wells on the Gill pad were affected by the storm.
A team of weather experts from the National Weather Service's Pittsburgh office arrived at the farm Friday morning to look at the damage and talk to the Gills.
“It was definitely a tornado,” said NWS meteorologist Fred McMullen. “The winds were from 65 to 85 mph.”
He said the team looks for structural damage, the orientation of fallen trees, clear evidence of a path and other factors in determining whether an actual tornado or just a bad storm hit a property.He said Thursday's tornado marked the 22nd in Butler County since 1950, and the 11th EF0 tornado.McMullen said many people who he talked to said their smartphones alerted them of the tornado warning issued by the NWS, which resulted in people calling their friends and family members to warn them of the situation.“The positive takeaway is that people know what to do (in the event of a tornado warning,)” he said.The tornado started at a cattle farm on Brownsdale Road near Route 68.The sound of chainsaws and mooing cattle, which stood in a field across the road from the farmhouse, filled the air near the house.A large tree in front of the house was snapped in two, and several other trees and brush covered the front of the house.More trees were down in the home's back yard, and a section of metal roofing was turned up on the barn.A plume of smoke in the side yard denoted the burning of brush and debris.No one at that home was available for comment.
