Hampton Tornado Update

This video was filmed in front of one of our friend's home and is where we worked most of yesterday helping with clean up.

As a number of readers have gathered, tornadoes are very unusual events in this part of Virginia.  We are accustomed to northeasters, tropical storms and hurricanes - all of which have plenty of advanced warning associated with them - so Friday night's event caught everyone by total surprise.  The National Weather Service has confirmed that Friday night's tornado was an EF1 with winds of 98 miles per hour.  A small event by Mid-West standards, but again something that rarely is seen here.  The tornado came ashore about 2 miles to the east of our home on Chesapeake Avenue in the Old Wythe neighborhood first slamming into Chesapeake Avenue where it continues after a brief break in the Merrimac Shores neighborhood (all the news coverage mentioning Chesapeake Avenue caused us to receive a deluge of calls checking on our safety).  The storm then roughly followed the west bank of the Hampton River up into downtown passing over the Crowne Plaza Hotel before a brief jump to the east side of the river.    The map below shows the curse of the storm track.  

Click image to enlarge

Two of our good friends - the owner of the shop beneath the boyfriend's salon (which was totally fine) and Hampton's mayor, Molly Ward - live in the Park Place area of what's called Little England from the name of the colonial era estate that once encompassed the area which was very hard hit.   The boyfriend and I helped move a totally destroyed aluminum john boat that had come to rest on the shp owner's front steps - we never did figure out where it had come from.    The tree damage at the Ward residence and the adjoining home of the late mayor's mother was horrific: several 100+ year old live oaks uprooted, half of a giant magnolia down, and tree sized limbs ripped off of other century old trees.  The homes suffered relatively minor damage all things considered most likely because they were built in the 1800's when houses were built to truly last.  The boyfriend and I spent over 6 hours yesterday helping these two friends clean up the huge mess, with the boyfriend wielding a chain saw and yours truly dragging limbs and chunks of tree trunk to the huge pile that quickly developed on the corner of the park in the center of the neighborhood..  While a number of other friends assisted in the effort, some total strangers that none of us had previously met also pitched in to help.

The City of Hampton estimates 206 single family homes and 99 multi-family homes were damaged to varying degrees.  WTKR-TV (which filmed me briefly while I was hot and dirty!) reports that the two hardest-hit neighborhoods, Merrimac Shores and Victoria/Park Place are still without power as of last evening. Many poles were snapped and lines are down and both neighborhoods are blocked off to vehicles (even residents and we parked and walked in to Park Place) while power crews replace poles and lines.  We saw one friend that lives right near the Hampton Yacht Club who said their roof had blown off.  Below are some photos:

Near the yacht club

Hampton Yacht Club - friends were there went the tornado hit

Tree damage

Amory's Seafood plant near downtown