COLUMBIA, Md. (WJZ) — EF-1 Tornado Confirmed In Columbia, Maryland
The cleanup continued Friday night in Howard County, 24 hours after a tornado touched down.
The National Weather Service said winds reached up to 95 miles per hour.
The tornado’s path in Columbia spanned five and a half miles long. The National Weather Service said Thursday’s storm was an EF-1 tornado. At the height of the storm about 10,000 people lost power in Howard County.
At this point, pretty much all of them have it back, according to BGE.
One woman said the damage at her home could’ve ended up much worse.
Lakshmi Singh said her and her family were not home at the time, so they relied on text messages with her neighbor to survey the damage.
”We had spoken with some neighbors nearby because we were both at work and they said it got real dark, basically black and they heard really heavy wind, rain, no lightning or anything. A neighbor over there was working from home and said she heard a really loud crack,” Singh said.
The crack was in her backyard. Singh said she considers herself lucky her home wasn’t damaged.
Others weren’t so fortunate. Another home’s roof was destroyed, the back deck completely demolished after a tree crashed through it.
A couple miles away on Patuxent Woods Drive, an entrance to an office building is blocked off after a portion of its roof blew off from the tornado.
Sounds of clean up cut through the neighborhood near the home on Wayover Way that took a hard hit from the storm.
A bright red sign is now tacked on the door, declaring it unsafe after the massive tree crashed through the roof, pinning one of the homeowners beneath.
She escaped with scrapes and fortunately no one else was hurt in the area.
by Kimberly Eiten (2019, May 24) WJZ
