Sunday tornado damages dozens of structures in Bertie County, N.C.

LEWISTON-WOODVILLE, N.C.

Falk Lassiter was watching "Stargate SG-1" with his girlfriend Sunday when the power went out and hail began beating on the roof of his mobile home on Connaritsa Road.

When he looked out his front door, he saw the nearby metal building that was an auto body shop blow away. The wind swept a car into the air. In the next instant, he was airborne, landing about 50 yards away next to one of the cars at the body shop.

His girlfriend, Myteara Thompson, landed near another car, her face badly lacerated.

Lassiter crawled to Benita Speller's brick house, which had lost most of its roof. Speller pulled him inside, then ran to help Thompson to the house.

"It all happened in the blink of an eye," Lassiter said as he sat in an older model minivan, the only shelter he had there. Metal staples closed a cut over his left eye.

Lassiter would be staying the night at his mother's house a few miles away. Thompson was recovering at Pitt County Memorial Hospital in Greenville, he said.

What hit his home was a tornado that ripped through northwest Bertie County at 6:30 p.m. Sunday, traveling about 25 miles and damaging 66 structures by early estimates. It tore down the chapel of Luella Baptist Church on Connaritsa Road.

The tornado was part of a line of storms that had raced through northeastern North Carolina and Virginia.

The worst damage in Bertie County was on Connaritsa Road and Piney Woods Road near Lewiston-Woodville, a town of 350, said Bertie County manager Zee Lamb. In all, 13 structures were destroyed, 23 received major damage and 30 others saw minor damage. Lassiter and Thompson's injuries were the most serious reported.

"We were lucky," Lamb said. "Very lucky."

Tornado warnings were heeded, said Norman Cherry, chairman of the Bertie County Board of Commissioners. Back in 1984, a tornado passed through nearly the same area and killed eight people, he said.

"When people hear about a tornado around here now, they take it seriously," he said.

Speller stood in her driveway Monday afternoon talking with friends and appearing in good spirits despite the fact that her roof was missing and much of the contents of the house were piled in heaps and damaged with water.

"I'm glad just to be able to be out here talking," she said. She would be staying at a friend's house.

Sunday evening, loud continuous thunder frightened Zelda Cousins, a single mother of two, and she decided to leave her home on Piney Woods Road to go to her mother's house nearby. That was 15 minutes before the tornado ripped her mobile home apart.

"I call it a blessing," she said.

Cousins, manager of the Dollar General in Rich Square, could not afford homeowner's insurance, she said.

About 1,200 were without power for about 12 hours, Lamb said. Almost all service had been restored by noon Monday, he said.

Lamb and the Bertie County Board of Commissioners declared the county in a state of emergency. Federal aid was requested early Monday. State aid will be forthcoming, said state Sen. Ed Jones, D-Bertie, who was in Lewiston-Woodville on Monday afternoon.

Gov. Michael Easley was expected today.

Bertie County Schools will be opened today after closing Monday.

Jeff Hampton, (252) 338-0159, jeff.hampton@pilotonline.com