"It just sounded like a freight train was coming..."
Mary Templeton of Bumpass believes a tornado buzzed by her home. Click to hear what she told fredericksburg.com.
Roy Cornwell describes the scene last night at his house in Thornburg. 'It looked just like a disaster scene.' Click to hear his report from WFLS News.
BY BETTY HAYDEN SNIDER
A kitchen appliance might have saved a Spotsylvania County couple's life during severe storms that pounded the region late Tuesday night and early yesterday.
Frankie Dodson Jr. and his wife, Susie, were sleeping soundly in their Snell home about 1 a.m. when a tree crashed through their roof. It landed in the kitchen and came to rest on the refrigerator, which kept the tree out of the couple's bedroom.
"The refrigerator saved my life," Frankie Dodson said.
It was part of a succession of violent storms that roared through Virginia damaging homes and toppling trees.
No injuries were reported, but high winds knocked out electricity to at least 10,000 customers. Power was to be restored to most by last night.
National Weather Service officials visited Louisa, Caroline and Essex counties yesterday to investigate reports of tornadoes, but the agency said it could not confirm any twisters.
The weather service said the storm packed straight-line winds that reached 90 mph in some places and dumped up to 1.5 inches of rainfall.
The Caroline Sheriff's Office received reports that a possible twister touched down in the area of Long Branch and Macedonia roads in northeastern Caroline.
Winds tore a metal roof off a garage at the intersection of Macedonia and Summit Crossing roads, sending debris into some woods 100 yards away where sections of the metal roof wrapped around trees.
A home at the intersection of Macedonia and Summit Crossing roads received minor damage. About five miles away, in the Guinea area, the winds tore the roofs off two houses and a carport off another.
In Essex County, the storm damaged two homes, a firehouse and a veterinary hospital in Tappahannock, said county Emergency Services Coordinator Larry Smith. Most of the impact occurred near the intersection of U.S. 17 and Airport Road at the edge of town.
Smith said yesterday afternoon that utility crews "were just finishing up" replacing lines and a half dozen poles downed by fallen trees. "There were a lot of close calls, but no one was injured."
Westmoreland County Emergency Services Coordinator Calvin Balderson said winds also damaged several farm buildings near Hague and a wall of the Coles Point Fire Substation. Several minor auto accidents also occurred on State Route 202 at Mount Holly as vehicles collided with part of an irrigation system that had blown onto the highway, said Sheriff's Maj. John Hoover.
The Virginia Department of Emergency Management reported that in Louisa County one home was destroyed while four others were damaged.
--Staff reporters Corey Byers and Frank Delano and staff photographer Reza A. Marvashti contributed to this report.
Along Stonewall Jackson Road near Guinea, not far from Thornburg, residents reported hearing what they thought was a tornado about 11:30 p.m. Tuesday.
"It sounded like about 14 freight trains," said Steve Parrish, a farmer and chief of the Upper Caroline Volunteer Fire Department.
Parrish spent the rest of the night inspecting damage at other homes in the area. At his own farm, the roof of a hay barn blew off and an empty grain silo was turned on its side. He said several dog kennels on his and his brother-in-law's property next door were mangled. The dogs were not injured, and some took the opportunity to go hunting.
--Betty Hayden Snider
'MOTHER NATURE REALLY TORE IT UP'
Across the road from Parrish's farm, the storm ripped a carport off the home of 98-year-old Hazel Lindsey. She had spent the night with a friend, but stopped by yesterday morning to inspect the damage.
"Mother Nature really tore it up," she said. "But it could have been worse. We could have been in there and gotten hurt."
The front porch of her home was also damaged, but an adjacent double-wide trailer she owns sustained more severe damage. Winds tore off the roof, spreading the debris across a field behind the trailer.
--Betty Hayden Snider
STORM SHAKES HOUSE, COUPLE
Aubrey and Paula Glass live on Stonewall Jackson Road in Caroline in a farmhouse built in the mid-1800s.
Paula said the storm was over before she could herd her husband and 12-year-old son down to the basement.
Aubrey, 50, is a truck driver who had planned to get up at midnight to go to work. He still looked shaken yesterday, 10 hours after the storm. "I've been scared in my life, but never that scared."
Paula, who had dozed off in a living-room rocker, said the whole house shook. "It felt like riding an old wooden roller coaster."
The storm peeled off the Glass' tin roof and knocked down a giant pin oak tree that was more than 100 years old. The tree split into three large sections.
--Betty Hayden Snider
'IT JUST SOUNDED LIKE A FREIGHT TRAIN'
Mary Templeton, 48, of Lewiston Road in Spotsylvania said her family woke up around 11:30 Tuesday night to a loud noise.
"It just sounded like a freight train was coming through the house and all of a sudden the whole house lit up like an aqua green and started trembling," said Templeton, who lives in the Bumpass area near Lake Anna.
She yelled for her husband and two teenage sons, and they ran downstairs to the laundry room.
Yesterday morning, they inspected the damage. Their house was unharmed, but just about everything else was amiss.
Their grill flipped over. and, "Our neighbor's trampoline had blown into our yard, crashed through our fence and literally wrapped itself around a tree in our yard like a sandwich."
Star Directory
"It just sounded like a freight train was coming..."
