FAIR HILL — A cleanup is scheduled for Tuesday morning after a fierce wind, or possibly even a tornado, whipped through Fair Hill Natural Resources Management Area late Monday afternoon, damaging a barn and the adjacent fairgrounds, according to the Maryland Department of Natural Resources.
DNR posted a notification about the weather event on its Facebook page, reporting, “Earlier this evening, a reported tornado may have hit Fair Hill State Park in Cecil County damaging a barn and adjacent fairgrounds. There are no reported injuries to horses or humans. Park staff are now conducting a park-wide assessment with an initial cleanup scheduled for tomorrow.”
Cecil County was not under a tornado watch by the National Weather Service on Monday, but most of the Washington, D.C., metro region was under such a watch for much of the evening. A tornado was confirmed to have touched down in Richmond, Va., which reportedly killed one person when a home collapsed.
The NWS warned of hazardous weather as a remnant of Tropical Storm Florence in Cecil County on Monday, including heavy rains and potential flash flooding.
It’s unknown if the damage in Fair Hill was the result of sustained high winds or an actual tornado touching down. The NWS would make that official declaration only after studying the pattern of the damage, meteorological measurements and other evidence to make that determination.
Reports of tornadoes in Cecil County in recent years were declared to rather be bouts of straight-line winds, which can be just as damaging.
Al Miller, president of the Cecil County Fair Board, told the Cecil Whig on Monday night that the weather event occurred sometime between 4 p.m. and 4:30 p.m., with heavy wind blowing off part of the roof on one of the three horse barns on the property.
“There are three big barns on the top of the hill and it (the wind) caught the western-most barn. It just lifted the roof off a third of that barn. It picked it up and dumped it. It has concrete block walls and when the roof came off, one row of blocks at the top came off with it,” Miller said.
The barns, which Miller referred to as “the race barns,” are used to keep the horses until they are led to the paddock before each race. Miller estimated that the barn hit by the heavy wind houses 36 horse stalls, of which 12 were affected, he reported.
Acknowledging that the weather event still needs to be officially accessed, Miller opined that a tornado was not responsible for the damage.
“I don’t think it was a tornado. It was a wind shear,” Miller said.
He noted that the barn’s roof has 3 feet of overhang, which keeps the sunlight off of the stabled horses. Miller believes the strong wind blew under that overhang and pulled off part of the roof, he said.
In addition, the strong wind toppled a tree near the lower gate on the property, he reported.
Barring any witness testimony, the National Weather Service at Mt. Holly, N.J., is prepared to rule that the Monday afternoon storm that blew through Cecil County was just that, and not a tornado.
“There was a shower about 2:50 p.m. and we saw some weak rotation on the radar,” said Sarah Johnson, a meteorologist with the monitoring agency. “It was not very strong.”
Barring further on-the-ground evidence, Johnson said the weather service wouldn’t likely change its assessment.
“We have no witnesses that saw any funnel clouds,” she added. “We’re calling it thunderstorm wind damage at this time.”
by Carl Hamilton, Jacob Owens & Jane Bellmyer (2018, September 17) Cecil Daily
