Tornado Damage

[crappiefarmer]

I don't know If any of You have been following the story on WAVY 10 about the tornado outbreak in NC but two of the EF2s originated in My home county of Chowan. One went by me the other night only a mile away. I was racing to finish plowing the last field on farm before the rain hit. Didn't make it. I was middle way down a long cut when a lightning bolt struck a tree on the other side of me from the cloud so I knew I was in the bad zone and made up my mind to leave when I made it back to the other end. When I got to the other end, I was wrapping up a set of fertilizer floater tracks through a bad bottom on the way back to the road bridge to get the heck out of their when it hit. A second or two before it hit, My ears started popping so I knew then something was bad wrong. I had to only go 100 more yards to get out of the field. I was going 5.5 MPH and went from dust flying to spinning my butt off before I could get out of the field. It rained so hard that I could not see anything only going 5.5 with wipers on full blast. Got hit by some hail too. Got on the road and could see the yellow line so I opened that tractor up wide open to get to the shop. When I got to the shop, the wind and rain laid down some. The lightning struck several trees around me on the way in. About a mile away though, I could see a lightning Bolt strobe light show like I have never seen before. The clouds were really low and I have seen strobe light lightning flash shows from cloud to cloud lightning in a bad electrical storm, But this was actual bolts of lightning coming down and hitting stuff like a strobe light. I have never seen anything like it. I got My but in my truck and got the heck out of their. Once I got home, A friend that is a fireman called me about a farming neighbor of mine who's property was hit by a bad tornado. Then the guy that owns property across the street from him called me to tell me His place looks like Joplin Missouri. So i took off to see If there was anything I could do to help. His Nephew was the only one there when I got there.

These are the Pics of the House where the Baby was that got hurt and is now at CHKD in an induced comma.



They will bring the 11 month old boy Gavin out of the Comma after the 48 hour period is up and will check brain function for brain damage as he coded 2 times on the way to the hospital. His color is good and doctors think He will be OK. But they want to make sure.

The Mom and Her 10 year old Niece are fine with a few cuts, bumps and bruises. The Niece climbed out of the back window of the house and ran for help next door the My farmer Neighbor who owns both homes and all the property there. He came over shining his truck lights on the house. Heard them in the house. They were trying to get out of a hole in the crushed down house but were obstructed by a piece of the roof of the porch. Ricky tried to lift the roof but it was too big. Luckily about that time a car load of guys came by and saw what was going on and jumped out to help. They lifted the roof off and got the Baby out first and then the Mom and Ricky rushed them to the hospital where they Stabilized Gavin and then flew him to CHKD. If it had not been for those fellas stopping, that baby would have died. The boy's Mom probably would have too. They were in the front part of the house that is crushed down. This house was lifted and moved a whole house length off its foundation. There was a 3 foot diameter pine tree snapped off 10 feet up like a match stick.

National weather service stopped by to evaluate the damage and they gave it EF2 strength. Just down the road from there, the road was blocked and the damage was just as bad if not worse. But no body died yet from any of this. Lots of homes destroyed. I know several people personally that had major damage. also Bethel fishing center area on the Yeopim river got wiped out so I heard. They won't let folks in and someone got flown out Friday Night from down there. Heard another Guy I know got hurt yesterday cutting a tree. He got a chain saw stuck in a suspended tree. He walked down the trunk with an ax to cut the saw loose. Was warned by a friend to not do that that it looked too dangerous. He took one whack, the tree snapped and the part he was on stood back up and catapulted him about 70 feet in the air. He landed on his back and had to get flown from the site to Pitt Memorial hospital in Greenville. I know there were 4 tornadoes down in the Greenville area, a possible EF3 in the Washington Chockowinity area which are about an hours drive south of me. Then the 2 we had, the other being in the Macedonia area which I have heard damage reports but have not seen yet. Too busy at the home end of things.

I don't know anything else on the Baby right now. WAVY 10 and Fox 43 were there 2 times yesterday at Ricky's place. National weather service was too. There is a lot more that the media has not seen at the ground level around here yet. They won't let the public in right now. It is too bad. They have been following Gavin's story good though and were able to find the guys that stopped and helped out. They never told who they were. they got the baby and mom in a truck and Ricky took off to the hospital with them. he never got to thank them. The media put the word out and one of the boys showed up yesterday. They went to CHKD to check on the Mom and Baby. That was a heck of a story.

I have been there at the property trying to figure out if there is something that i can do to help Ricky with his farming as he has a lot of damaged equipment. All his harvest equipment was either damaged or destroyed. He has old equipment that the value has dropped but got the job done so replacing is not so easy when everything over the years has just gotten bigger and more expensive. We have helped each other over the years with loaning each other equipment, help harvest and other things. He has also had other farmers offer help already. He will get his crops planted and harvested this year. That is already a done deal. He just has to head up the clean up, deal with insurance, and try to slowly replace his lost equipment. Here is some pics of his loss and this was directly behind the house that got wiped out.







That was and equipment shelter. The white dump truck in the second pic got moved 10 feet. It was completely under the shelter. Now it has the roof laying on it. and sticking out from where it was. There is now a hole in the woods behind this place. This was a heck of a storm. It could have been a lot worse though.CF

[Barnacle Bill]

Good grief. I sure hope that baby will be OK. I knew there were storms down there but didn't realize they were that bad.

["D"]

Prayers sent. Thanks for sharing that CF. Gives all time to pause and be thankful.

[Boscoe]

I saw that on the news, glad your OK, and hope that baby pulls through. From your pics and the ones I saw on the news I'm amazed no one was killed. My mom's family lost their hose twice before she was 10 in Texas. One of the tornados carried her step dads prize Brahma bull a half a mile and threw it through the roof a barn 20' off the ground.

[crappiefarmer]

I saw that on the news, glad your OK, and hope that baby pulls through. From your pics and the ones I saw on the news I'm amazed no one was killed. My mom's family lost their hose twice before she was 10 in Texas. One of the tornados carried her step dads prize Brahma bull a half a mile and threw it through the roof a barn 20' off the ground.

They are no joke. That is for sure. We were lucky. If it had been a mile south on its track, It would have cleaned our clocks.CF

[crappiefarmer]

I got word about mid afternoon that the Baby died this morning. We went up to the house with chainsaws along with about 15 other men and cut trees and had a couple tractors pulling and pushing. We got the remains of the shelter and trees piled up for a burn. Another farmer will be bringing in an excavator with bucket and thumb tomorrow to pick up the more precise stuff and clean the house up into a pile. Please send prayers for the family. Web site set up for fund raising for the Baby's funeral if anyone is interested. There is a link on WAVY 10s website.

I went to another man's house that lives down the road from Where this house is and He lost his whole roof. The tornado was 1/2 mile wide through there and it cut trees down like I have never seen. How it could clear a woods a 1/2 mile wide in just seconds is just mind boggling. I got some Pics of Burnt Mill creek off of the Yeopim river that I'll post later. I didn't fish that creek much because average depth is 3 to 4 feet deep but no one will fish that creek again for 15 years because trees are in it and tied in knots. It is unreal.

I also made it down to the bethel area on the Yeopim. This is where the boat ramp is for those familiar with this river. I did not see a house down there that did not loose its roof or have a tree that went through to the floor. Those people are in bad shape. The News has not made it to them because the roads have been closed. I was able to get in there this morning while the crews were at a lull. It will be a week or two before they get the power straight and no telling how many fires from all the unknown wiring damage when the lights come back on. Heard of tranformers blowing and catching on fire as they have been trying to bring the power back up. As for me, all I have had to do today is mow my grass. I was very fortunate. But just a mile North of My shop, across the Yeopim river, those poor folks are going through Hell.CF

[Barnacle Bill]

This is very sad and I know from personal experience what the family is going thru. Here is the link Ed mentioned. http://wavy.com/2014/04/27/gov-mccro...ornado-damage/

[crappiefarmer]

Thanks Bill.CF

[crappiefarmer]

Here are the Pics from Burnt Mill creek I got today. You have to really look hard in some to make out the creek. A good brim fishing creek was totally lost to this tornado. It will be years before anyone will be able to navigate this creek again.







This next pic is one side of the tornado swath. The tall trees You see still standing way back is the other side of swath and they are 1/2 mile away. This is right at the bank of Burnt Mill creek which was just to the right of where I was standing. Sure changed the landscape around here.CF

[Boscoe]

Saw on the news last night that two of those tornados were F2s with 30 and 40 mile tracks, not some thing that happens often in this part of the country. More stuff headed this way later this week too, hope it's not a new weather trend.