At least 5 EF1 tornadoes confirmed across Westmoreland, Fayette, Indiana counties, National Weather Service says
The National Weather Service has confirmed at least five EF1 tornadoes touched down across Westmoreland and Indiana counties on Sunday as severe weather rolled through the area.
National Weather Service storm surveyors first found damage consistent with an EF1 tornado near Donegal, Westmoreland County. A second EF1 tornado touched down near the Ligonier area, surveyors said Monday afternoon. The Ligonier tornado came from the same part of the line that produced the tornado in Donegal.
The third confirmed tornado touched down near Josephine in Indiana County.
A fourth tornado was later confirmed in Darlington, near Wilpen, Westmoreland County. More surveys will be performed in the areas the survey team could not reach on Monday.
On Tuesday, NWS surveyors confirmed a fifth EF1 tornado touched down near Haddenville, Fayette County.
Wind speeds of 86-110 mph were recorded during the storm.
Three tornado warnings were issued for parts of the area Sunday as a round of severe weather quickly moved across the region.
Severe weather leaves a trail of damage across multiple counties
Sunday's storms left behind plenty of damage for residents to clean up.
A market in New Kensington had its roof ripped off as the storms moved through Westmoreland County on Sunday.
An aerial view of the scene at the corner of Taylor Avenue in New Kensington showed the damage from the severe weather.
As Sunday's severe storms moved through the area, two wooden beams ended up inside a home in Carroll Township.
One beam hit the kitchen. The other hit the bathroom. The homeowner said if she had been in the kitchen doing her dishes, she could have been killed.
In Acme, Westmoreland County, residents say when the storms hit, they weren't sure if it was a tornado or straight-line winds. When they looked outside, they realized something severe had come their way.
There were poles down, wires down, and damaged buildings, leaving many things to be cleaned up after the storms passed.
"It sounded like a freight train and everything around is in slow motion and that's exactly what it was," said resident Tom Goldinger, who had his barn damaged by the weather.
Goldinger was sitting in his house when an EF1 tornado tore through his neighborhood along Acme Dam Road.
"You just watched the trees just snap at the top; everything was in slow motion," Goldinger said. "Yeah, it blew the front of the barn out."
Not far down the road, a real-life drama was playing out at Andy Ansell's home.
"The wind started blowing, [and] it got black. You couldn't even see across the road, all of a sudden, she hit," Ansell recounted.
The roof on Ansell's home was damaged, but held up, unlike several broken utility poles snapped by the wind. Wires littered the ground on Monday.
The wind was so powerful, it laid waste to a garage. Another nearby home had its roof ripped off and blown hundreds of yards away.
Sandy Kinneer's mother's old home was "a total loss," Kinneer said. The storms downed a tree that punctured its roof and destroyed the floor.
Kinneer's camper was also flipped upside down onto its roof.
As of Monday afternoon, many residents who spoke with KDKA-TV said that they don't have power and don't anticipate getting the lights back on at least for a few more days.
NWS meteorologists surveying the damage
In Bolivar, near Ligonier in Westmoreland County, the National Weather Service confirmed that an EF1 tornado touched down at Matson Farms on Sunday afternoon, ripping through three buildings, destroying one completely, and causing an estimated $500,000 in damage.
The family says they are lucky that no people were hurt and none of their 800 head of cattle were killed.
Shannon Hefferan, the Lead Meteorologist from the NWS in Pittsburgh, was on the scene at Matson Farms surveying the destruction.
"In Westmoreland County, we are seeing tornado damage," said Hefferan. "We had one circulation, but it touched down multiple times, so it will be different tracks. The wind gusts for the majority of this damage are between 90 to 100 mph, so EF0 to EF1 is what we are looking like in the preliminary stage."
The storms moved through the area fast and furiously, bringing down trees and wires, but some of the most extreme damage was in Burrell Township near Blairsville, where a barn was destroyed.
The barn was built in the late 1870s and was ripped apart by high winds as the storms moved through the region.
While just down Route 119, a massive white oak tree was pushed over, crashing onto the roof of a house.
Again, no one in either one of these scenes was severely hurt.
The National Weather Service says that while tornadoes can come in suddenly, there are ways to stay safe when wicked weather strikes.
"Have your phone turned on for emergency alerts, especially in the nighttime," said Hefferan. "Around 1 p.m. or 1:30 p.m., everyone is awake, which is good, but as we go further into the season, and as we get more severe weather, it might happen in the nighttime. You really want to get those alerts on your phone, so if you are in bed, you are not taken by surprise if you are not watching the weather."
Now, the cleanup is underway across the region. The Matson family says that instead of donating to a GoFundMe, they want to encourage people to buy locally.
That will help this farm, and they hope other farms affected, get through this crisis.
