Residents, churchgoers recall tornado touchdown, begin clearing debris
“It was the scariest thing I’ve ever experienced in my life,” said Lynn Michigan, who was attending a Saturday evening service at Crossroads Ministries in Finleyville with her husband, Rob, when a tornado touched down around 6:05 p.m.
Rob, a member of the Castle Shannon Volunteer Fire Department, helped with efforts to move about 100 worshippers to safety in the church basement as the tornado struck.
“I’ve been with the fire service since 1984 and it’s the first time I’ve ever experienced something like this, and I don’t want to experience it again,” he said.
On Sunday, worshippers at Crossroads Ministries and residents in Union Township, Washington County, began clearing debris and making repairs after the tornado ripped through the area.
At least a dozen homes and Crossroads Ministries, along with dozens of cars, were damaged, and trees and power lines were downed as the tornado and high winds tore a path through Union and Peters townships.
The National Weather Service Pittsburgh confirmed Saturday night that a tornado touched down near Finleyville between 6:05 p.m. and 6:15 p.m. An NWS crew visited the site Sunday morning to assess damage and intensity, and preliminary evidence suggests the tornado was an F1.
The Rev. Ken Barner, pastor, was leading a service with around 100 churchgoers, including babies, as the tornado approached, and knew they needed to take cover.
“My wife, Rhonda, was singing and all of a sudden you could hear the noise of the storm, you could hear the wind outside. The power jumped once, then the power went out and came back on. I knew there had been a tornado warning for Lawrence County at 5 p.m., so I started evacuating people downstairs where there’s a cinder block basement,” said Barner.
A section of an office/classroom roof connected to the church was ripped off, and the steeple was toppled, ending up in the parking lot.
“The roof was lifted off, came up and over the (church), and it’s out in the woods somewhere. There’s debris everywhere, but everybody’s safe and we’re praising God,” said Barner, noting several members of the congregation suffered cuts and bruises from broken glass.
Video captured by some church members showed the funnel cloud forming and debris flying through the air.
Meanwhile, Gene and Joyce Abel of McClelland Road, near Trax Farms, were hosting a birthday party for their 4-year-old granddaughter, with about a dozen guests in attendance, unaware of the approaching tornado.
Next door, Gene’s brother and sister-in-law, Larry and Michele Abel, were babysitting their two grandsons.
“My husband, son and son-in-law were all outside. They saw the twister, and as soon as they saw it, it touched down over our house,” recalled Joyce Abel. “My husband had to hold on to the railing of the house because it almost took him. The roof flew off our house and almost hit my son and he said, ‘Come on, we’ve gotta get out of here.’ They couldn’t even get back in the house fast enough. They saw the twister, but my husband said it looked like it was way over the hill, but in the next two seconds it was there.”
The second floor of their home was destroyed.
“I went to try to shut my door and the top balcony of my house fell straight down in front of me,” said Joyce Abel.
Michele Abel was riding in a golf cart in the yard with her young grandsons when it started to rain and the sky turned orange.
“It was so creepy that you thought something was going to happen. I just made a note of it, thinking how pretty the sky was, but it was so creepy. It was yellow and orange and it looked like the clouds were almost reaching down. I had no idea a tornado was coming,” she said.
Abel went inside with her grandchildren, and within minutes the wind picked up “and we heard things hitting the window.”
Larry Abel headed downstairs and opened a door, and it flew open as the wind caught it.
“Then, the force that hit the side of the house was incredible, and (Larry) said, ‘There’s a tornado,” said Michele. “So I grabbed the kids and started taking them downstairs. But when I grabbed them, I saw all this stuff start flipping around and overturning, and we ran down to the basement and in like 15 seconds it was over. When I came back up, our 40-by-60 building in the backyard was gone.”
In addition to extensive damage to the building, the roof of their home was damaged, and several trees, including an enormous 25-year-old maple tree and apple trees, were uprooted and knocked down.
Emergency crews across the county, along with American Red Cross and Salvation Army, responded to the scene, and a staging area was set up at Trax Farms immediately following the tornado.
Washington County Commissioner Nick Sherman said Saturday night that there were a dozen homes damaged, some with severe structural damage.
Drones with infrared flew and a Pennsylvania State Police helicopter flew over the area as part of a search-and-rescue effort.
“We’re going to make sure we’re working through the night to help these people to get them all the resources they need. There’s a roofing company that showed up that’s going to do emergency tarping through the night, which is awesome for them to do that,” Sherman said.
There were no serious injuries.
Golf ball-sized hail also fell in parts of Fayette County, including Uniontown, and Allegheny County.