DALLAS, W.Va. — The storm which caused a swath of damage through part of Marshall County Monday night was a tornado.
National Weather Service officials spent much of Tuesday in the Dallas community taking a look at the pattern of damage as well as pictures and videos provided by eyewitnesses.
The experts determined it was an EF2 tornado with maximum winds of 110-120 mph.
Survey teams found two tornadoes from the storms yesterday. Link to the PNS pictured below: https://t.co/uLl2suEV2Y pic.twitter.com/4FDaxOluNK
— NWS Pittsburgh (@NWSPittsburgh) August 2, 2022
The storm came and went quickly and was very narrow in where it delivered a punch. Hannah Durig lives only a mile from her aunt, but experienced no damage to her home. Her aunt’s property took the full force of the storm.
“It’s something I have never seen before. It looks like a right-of-way that’s cut through a hollow and up the mountain. With the trees gone it looks like God just pulled them up,” Durig said in an interview with MetroNews.
She arrived at her aunt’s home to check on her just moments after the storm hit.
“She was stuck in her electric chair. She couldn’t get up when the power went out. She and her husband said it sounded like a freight train and it was the loudest noise ever. She couldn’t get up and by the time we got there it was already over with,” she said.
Durig’s cousin was staying in a camper on the property which was flattened. Her belongings were strewn across hundreds of yards of a nearby field and the camper was shredded. Several nearby homes lost their roof and a pole barn on the property was leveled by the intensity off the storm.
“We have trees that have been cut down and a few homes with roof damage. We also have some barns that are no longer standing and were obliterated,” said Marshall County’s Director of Emergency Management Tom Hart.
Hart said the storm wasn’t on the ground long and wasn’t all that big.
“It actually started in Ohio County right at the Marshall County line. It made its way north and east of Dallas and over into Washington County, Pa. We’re estimating the width was 400 to 500 yards,” said Hart.
Cleanup was underway Tuesday with the Dallas Volunteer Fire Department serving as a hub for relief supplies. It’s the first confirmed tornado in Marshall County in 20-years.