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Herbie Oaks saws up fallen trees that damaged an electric fence that keeps cattle in a pasture at Oakley Farm in Spotsylvania.
Patty Strong walks through an equipment shed that was heavily damaged after a possible tornado passed through Oakley Farm in western Spotsylvania on Thursday evening. |
By RUSTY DENNEN
Stafford County fire and rescue workers converged on Holly Corner Road south of U.S. 17 on Thursday evening expecting to find devastation wrought by a tornado.
When they arrived--based on a tornado warning issued by the National Weather Service office in Sterling--they found wind and rain, but no damage in sight.
Meanwhile, what may have been a tornado was pummeling Oakley Farm near Todds Tavern in Spotsylvania County at around the same time.
Chris Strong, a meteorologist in Sterling, said yesterday that forecasters that evening had been monitoring the two large thunderstorms. The first warning for severe weather in Spotsylvania was issued at about 5:25 p.m. and damage reports soon followed.
A similar warning was issued in Stafford at 5:49 p.m.
Then at 6:12, the weather service erroneously reported that a tornado had touched down along Holly Corner Road.
The warning should have been issued for Todds Tavern, where a trained volunteer weather spotter reported that a tornado had touched down.
The mix-up caused some anxiety in Stafford, where emergency workers scoured Holly Corner Road, just west of the University of Mary Washington's College of Graduate and Professional Studies.
"We were out in force," Roger Sutherland, Stafford County's assistant fire chief, said yesterday. "They [forecasters] weren't far off the money. It was a pretty good storm," he said, but there was obviously no tornado.
Strong said forecasters evidently got the two storms confused; both had the characteristic rotation associated with tornadoes. He said the erroneous report was corrected later that evening.
Around 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Anne Beals, an owner of Oakley Farm, was driving home to Spotsylvania from Fredericksburg.
Under the dark and threatening sky, "I could see something was going on," Beals said yesterday.
As she pulled up the cedar-lined drive, she saw trees snapped off halfway up their trunks, metal sheets ripped from a machine shed roof, and a large oak had been toppled just a few feet from the family home.
Spots in a barley field behind the house were whooshed flat by the wind, and numerous hardwoods and pines were felled around the 3,800-acre tree farm.
Beals, family members and farm workers yesterday assessed the damage and began the days-long task of cleaning up the farm along West Catharpin Road.
A family friend was at home in the house alone when the storm hit, Beals said.
"She hid in the cellar."
It's easy to see why. The wind blew so hard that trees were sheared off. Pieces of the the shed roof were scattered in fields over a hundred yards away.
Beals marveled that the brick farm house was spared.
"This house has been here nearly 200 years and you've got to have had a lot of weather events like this," she said. "We dodged a bullet."
Beals believes the damage was wrought by a tornado, because, unlike the straight-on winds of a thunderstorm, the damage is scattered all over.
The day before the storm, the electric fence around pastures had finally been repaired for the season, after months of work, she said.
That was undone in a few minutes. Black Angus cattle were wandering free yesterday morning through holes in the fences. A utility crew worked through the morning to restore power.
Beals said the damage was comparable to that of Hurricane Isabel, which hit the area in September 2003. However, damages from Thursday night's storm was more widespread.
After damaging Oakley Farm, the storm raced through Post Oak a few miles to the east, where more trees were downed. Utility and fire and rescue crews worked to clear the roads yesterday.
The bad weather had been expected. By early Thursday afternoon, the weather service was predicting potentially strong thunderstorms throughout Central Virginia, including the Fredericksburg area.
Strong said National Weather Service-trained volunteer "Skywarn" spotters called in reports on Spotsylvania and Stafford storms. Forecasters also rely on reports from fire and rescue and police in the field.
A preliminary storm survey completed by the weather service yesterday said that tornadoes touched down near Mastins Corner and Chancellorsville in Spotsylvania. Another touched down north of Falmouth in Stafford.
To reach RUSTY DENNEN:
Email: rdennen@freelancestar.com
