Damage from Suffolk tornado exceeds $20 million

SUFFOLK

A community shaken by a massive twister began to right itself Tuesday as weary, displaced residents were allowed to return to their battered neighborhoods and city and state leaders began to tally the damage.

Fire Chief Mark Outlaw called it a blessing that no one was killed in the city, where the largest of the state's six confirmed tornadoes struck Monday afternoon.

The twister, a category EF-3 with winds reaching about 160 mph, cut a northeast swath of destruction through the 430-square-mile city. The cost of the damage rose throughout the day as city workers examined hundreds of homes. By 5 p.m., inspectors had surveyed 342 properties, and the city released a total damage estimate - thus far- at $20.1 million. Inspectors still had to complete their work in one of the hardest-hit areas, Hillpoint Farms.

About 145 homes had been condemned, said Deputy Fire Chief Brian Spicer, and more than 1,200 homes suffered damage, according to the Virginia Department of Emergency Management.

Serious injuries were relatively scarce, however, a fact that amazed people who visited the areas of destruction or saw photos of the overturned vehicles, the flattened homes, the twisted metal.

An official from Sentara Obici Hospital, which itself barely avoided a direct hit, said the emergency room treated 70 people. Only three were admitted to the hospital, and none had life-threatening injuries, said Phyllis Stoneburner, Obici's vice president of patient care services.

"We are lucky," Mayor Linda Johnson said. "It could have been much worse."

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, accompanied by U.S. Reps. Randy Forbes and Thelma Drake, and an entourage of General Assembly members and Suffolk officials, visited some of the most devastated neighborhoods in Suffolk, including Hillpoint Farms, Burnetts Mill and Driver, late Tuesday afternoon.

Kaine offered what consolation he could to residents such as Helen Becker, who wept after finding a Christmas wreath from the attic of her virtually demolished Hillpoint Farms home 100 yards away in the street.

"Oh, my God," she said, quietly sobbing.

Shortly afterward, her husband, Tom Becker, stood in disbelief as he took in the shredded second floor of their home, a mesh of shattered, strewn sheetrock, insulation, beams and bits of furniture

"I wonder where my pool table is," he said.

A neighbor's home was swept clean off its foundation. Only a motorcycle, lying on its side, was left on the garage floor.

A makeshift shelter at King's Fork High School put up about 75 people Monday night, said volunteer Tom Martin, who works for Network Medical Systems. Registered nurses were there to take care of minor injuries and help residents get prescriptions. Church members and other residents dropped off clothing, diapers, blankets and toiletries.

Donna Allen-Ledbetter, 43, had no idea as of early Tuesday afternoon whether her house was still standing.

"You may not be able to get back mementos and you may not be able to get back photos, but I have my husband and I have my daughter," she said.

Frustration began to grow, however, as people waited to be allowed back to their homes. About 50 gathered around noon in the King's Fork gym for an update. Johnson talked about rebuilding, but members of the crowd repeatedly asked when they would be allowed to pick up important belongings.

City Manager Selena Cuffee-Glenn asked for patience while emergency workers finished searching the rubble and ensuring the neighborhoods were safe.

Kevin Baker, who lives in Hillpoint Farms, waited out the storm in a closet with his 12-year-old daughter, then spent the night without electricity, gas or his wife, Stephanie. She got a hotel room after roadblocks and clogged highways turned her back on two different approaches home.

"She was in the car for 4-1/2 hours," Kevin Baker said.

On Tuesday he and his daughter abandoned their home and reunited with his wife outside their evacuated neighborhood, unsure when they would return.

They and other displaced families took up rooms at a Holiday Inn Express, just across the highway from where the twister cut its path. On the front desk a platter held two chocolate chip cookies - the same number of employees that general manager Sherry Pounds had at her disposal.

Roadblocks stopped many of her workers from getting to the hotel.

"I've got one housekeeper for 79 rooms," Pounds said. "I'd like somebody with some pull to let some of my employees in."

Pounds said her head housekeeper, who has two sons, lost her house in the twister. The worker spent the day after at the hotel trying to deal with her insurance while her husband is deployed with the Navy, Pounds said.

By 11 a.m. police planned to begin letting residents in Burnetts Mill return via escort for 30 minutes at a time to assess their homes and retrieve a few personal items.

Joseph Valenti couldn't wait. The printer repairman and his wife weren't able to return home Monday night, and by Tuesday morning he was beginning to worry about their dog, a boxer named Roxy.

So Valenti ventured through a nearby neighborhood to get around the back of his house, climbed a 6-foot security fence and tried to stay unseen by police as he scampered through his backyard.

"Felt like I was a commando or something," said Valenti, still in his Monday work clothes.

His cell phone rang about 10 minutes after he opened his door. It was his security company. Valenti hadn't realized the alarm stayed on in the power outage, thanks to a back-up battery.

It's OK, he told them. There's police all over his neighborhood. "I said, 'We had a tornado. It's a major disaster.' "

By early evening the police had begun allowing people in some areas of Burnetts Mill and Hillpoint Farms to return home permanently, but five streets in Burnetts Mill and 10 in Hillpoint Farms remained off limits.

Off Snead Drive, in the Hillpoint Farms development, a backhoe picked at what was left of a home that was almost unrecognizable as a home.

Hints at the ferocity of the storm could be gleaned from the absurd array of debris on the sidewalks and street - a propane grill, a rocking chair, a sneaker, a stuffed doll, a partially peeled potato and a tree branch adorned with bits of pink, fiberglass insulation.

Kaine said a decision on whether to seek federal disaster relief was still pending the completion of damage assessments.

After visiting a couple of the worst-hit areas, Kaine said it was "nothing short of miraculous" that no fatalities had yet been reported and so few people were injured.

Staff writers Robert McCabe and Hattie Brown Garrow contributed to this report.

Dave Forster, (757) 222-5563, dave.forster@pilotonline.com