SUFFOLK, Va. — It was a scene of haphazard destruction that stretched for 25 miles: Row upon row of homes reduced to sprays of splintered lumber, shopping centers stripped to bare metal, parking lots turned into junkyards.
And yet no one died.
“The only thing I can say is we were watched over and blessed,” Fire Chief Mark Outlaw said Tuesday.
As shaken residents and rescuers returned Tuesday to survey what was left, they were amazed by the scope of the damage and their good fortune. Even among the 200 people who were injured, most suffered only cuts and scrapes.
Authorities said people in the tornado’s path had plenty of warning and were fortunate that the twister struck in the late afternoon, rather than at night, when most residents would have been sleeping.
The extra few minutes provided enough time for people in the storm’s path to huddle in bathrooms or crouch in the back of stores as the strongest of six twisters zigzagged for 25 miles across central and southeast Virginia.
Gov. Timothy Kaine, who declared a state of emergency in the hardest-hit areas, said about 145 homes were severely damaged in Suffolk, a city of 80,000 people west of Norfolk. Most of the injured had been released from hospitals.
“It is kind of amazing there weren’t more significant injuries,” Kaine said on WTOP radio in Washington, D.C. “You are talking about 145 homes; that is probably five to six hundred people directly affected by this tornado.”
At least a dozen people remained hospitalized, six of them in critical condition.
The tornado that hit Suffolk touched down repeatedly between 4:30 and 5 p.m. Monday, when many people were still at work or on their way home.
The National Weather Service confirmed that tornadoes also hit Brunswick County, about 60 miles west, and Colonial Heights, about 60 miles northwest. Three other twisters hit in Isle of Wight and Surry counties.
Those tornadoes caused far less damage than the twister that ravaged Suffolk.
In Suffolk, some roads remained blocked Tuesday, and it was not clear when residents and business owners would be allowed to return to damaged neighborhoods. Emergency workers with search dogs combed through rubble while inspectors assessed the damage.
Jon Fisher and his wife lined up with about 30 other people at the entrance to their neighborhood Tuesday, waiting for police to escort them back to their homes to retrieve pets. They said they were told they would have to leave again and not be able to take anything else with them.
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