Sunset Beach, NC – At least three people died when a possible tornado touched down in Brunswick County before midnight, leaving a trail of damage.
The Brunswick County Sheriff’s Office said the tornado touched down in the Seaside Road area and U.S. Highway 17 between 11:30 PM Monday and 12:00 PM. He was on the floor for about 30 minutes.
More than 50 homes were damaged, most in the Ocean Ridge Plantation neighborhood in Ocean Isle Beach, where three deaths and at least 10 injuries were reported.
“I’ve seen devastation that I haven’t seen in many years,” Randy Thompson, chairman of the Brunswick County Board of Commissioners, said at a noon news conference. “This was a real disaster last night.”
Edward Conrow, Brunswick County’s director of emergency services, said the search and rescue efforts were completed Tuesday morning and officials were conducting damage assessments.
Damage reports also include gas leaks, damaged commercial buildings, and fallen trees and power lines along US 17 and Old Shallotte Road, Conrow said.
The National Weather Service confirmed that the twister was an EF-3 tornado with winds of up to 160 mph. The tornado cut a path through Brunswick County and Columbus County.
The tornado was particularly dangerous because many people were asleep when the storm hit and didn’t have time to prepare, Conrow said.
“We had a very minimal warning,” he said, noting that the storm was already on the ground by the time the weather service alerted local authorities.[Weather Service meteorologists] were very surprised at how fast this storm was growing. That’s something they don’t normally see. “
Kate Gentle, a Brunswick County resident who lives five minutes from where the tornado touched down, told WRAL News that she spent Monday night at her son’s lacrosse game and had no idea a storm was coming.
According to Gentle, when the family got home, they faced heavy, frequent thunderstorms and lightning. Then, said Gentle, everything went quiet. She put her kids in a closet just before the tornado warning came through.
“You could tell something wasn’t right,” she said.
Gentle’s family and home escaped damage, but she said she was “heartbroken” for those less fortunate in her community.
Reverend Dwight Reeves, pastor of Seaside Christian Fellowship, discovered that the roof of his church had been ripped off Tuesday morning.
“It changes your life,” Reeves said of the storm. You know things like this happen in life, but you never expect it to actually show up at your door this time. We always see other people with destruction around. Now, to see it, I have more compassion for those people. “
Church member Scott Blackmon went to help clean up on Tuesday morning after escaping unharmed overnight.
“The wind and thunder increased with lightning and we lost strength,” said Blackmon, who lives less than a mile from the church. “We heard the roar and we literally jumped in the bath, as you hear on TV.”
Sheriff John Ingram asked people who are not property owners or who are not helping victims to avoid the area while the crews work to clear streets.
Conrow said the sheriff’s office would set up entry points to keep non-residents out of the Ocean Ridge area.
Corey Thurlow with Brunswick Electric Membership Corp. said the force of the storm caused widespread damage to the county’s transmission system by overturning poles and trees, affecting about 35,000 customers at its peak.
Power was restored to about 10,000 members before 2am, Thurlow said, but there are some outages until Tuesday afternoon.
“Our priority is to provide power to all our members in our service area as quickly and safely as possible,” said Thurlow. “Our thoughts are with the individuals who have suffered loss as a result of these storms.”
According to the US Census, an estimated 140,000 people would live in Brunswick County in 2019.
The storm is part of the larger weather system that is bringing brutal cold temperatures to much of the US, including a paralyzing ice storm that has surrounded Texas causing massive power outages.