BY MILES AND NICOLE LAYTON
PERQUIMANS COUNTY — Residents of the Longview Estates Mobile Home Park are cleaning up debris and counting their blessings Monday morning after a possible tornado ripped through the neighborhood, damaging 13 homes but no one was seriously injured.
Longview Estates is off Woodville Road, near Pasquotank County.
The National Weather Service issued a tornado warning at 3:02 a.m. Monday noting that the radar had indicated rotation in a storm that was moving 50 miles per hour northeast. Usually the agency conducts on-the-ground research to confirm that a tornado has occurred.
According to the Perquimans County Emergency Operations Center, three people were taken to Sentara Albemarle Medical Center for evaluation.
Sheriff Shelby White noted that some trailers flipped over, but there were no fatalities. He was among the first to respond to the scene.
“All I know is right now we have some damage,” he said. ” (We have) several trailers that have were damaged, flipped over. There are some injuries, no fatalities. There is a good loss of power, obviously down the roadway.”
Inter-County Volunteer Fire Department Chief Michael Cartwright noted that the agency arrived on the scene at 3 a.m. Monday.
“We had three occupied trailers that were completely destroyed. We had one small child still inside one trailer that we were able to get out with no injuries,” he said. “Then we started going through and checking the rest of the trailers to see if there was any other people trapped. We had one more occupant that had a minor injury to the leg, but she didn’t require transportation to the hospital. EMS treated her on scene.”
Cartwright noted of the 13 damaged trailers, seven were occupied and six were unoccupied. The suspected tornado also damaged some outbuildings, such as a farm shelter.
Utility companies were on the scene Monday morning to assess the damage.
White noted that electric poles were down on Woodville Road and in Longview Estates. According to Albemarle Electric Membership Cooperative, about 1,500 customers, all south of US 17, were without power at of 8:48 a.m.
“We’ve got poles down on Woodville and Poles down back here, but as of right now, they’re doing a daytime assessment of the damage to determine how much, how much power can be restored and how much water can be restored,” White said. “The water department has been down here and assessed. The power company is on their way to assess, and fire is doing a total damage assessment of the entire trailer park.”
The Perquimans County Emergency Operations Center was activated due to damage from the weather event this morning.
At 7:30 a.m., the center gave the following update:
- 13 mobile homes have extensive damage in the Longview Estates community
- Public Safety and Utility Crews are still on scene
- Three survivors were transported to Sentara Albemarle Medical Center for evaluation by EMS
- One family is being assisted by The American Red Cross
- County Damage Assessment Teams will be on the ground
- There was a tornado warning at the time in this area, but it has not been confirmed that the damage was caused by a tornado.
- Access is restricted in this neighborhood unless you are a resident.
Cartwright said that the Inter-County VFD was assisted by Durants Neck VFD, Perquimous County EMS, Perquimous County Sheriff’s Office, Perquimans County Emergency Operations Center and Perquimans-Gates 911 Center.
Rain was expected to continue Monday and end Tuesday with the high temperature around 61 degrees.
