Tornadic winds tear roof off Butler County salt garage
Storms ripped the roof off a Butler County salt barn, and the National Weather Service now says a tornado is to blame.
Survey teams plan to examine the area on Thursday to see the damage for themselves. They also plan to see if tornadoes may have touched down around McGovern in Washington County and White Oak.
The Unionville Volunteer Fire Department caught the worst of the damage on camera.
The salt is still inside the building, but the roof that protected it was blown away.
Pieces of cement blocks lay around the property as parts of the roof were strewn across a parking lot.
KDKA-TV spoke with the Unionville Volunteer Fire Department president, who happens to also be the township supervisor.
Phil Wulff said no one was inside the structure at the time, but the tornado took the roof off the building.
The township does have an additional salt barn, and there was no equipment inside the damaged structure at the time of the incident.
Wulff said that he doesn't know of any other buildings in town that were damaged, adding that some trees fell onto area roadways and some parts of the township were flooded.
The damaged building, Wulff said, is not salvageable.
"It was definitely interesting, cool seeing it. You can see it picking it up, and the roof just kind of went up in the air, whisked it a little bit, and went down on the parking lot," Wulff said.
The township expects to file with its insurance company to construct a new building.
