Philadelphia Daily News from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Page 6

THE PHILADELPHIA DAILY NEWS PAGE 6 ltM-in I. MddL 33 nmprd 15 Limerick homes leveled in a sudden burst of fury It was the American dream a suburban home, a two-car garage, a green lawn, fresh air. In less than 90 seconds, the iron fist of Mother Nature flattened it all with stunning fury, turning a burgeoning housing development in western Montgomery County into a chaotic nightmare of shattered houses and lost lives. I This report was the work of Yvonne Latty, Nicole Weisen-see, Joseph R. Daughen, Gloria Campisi and Don Russell, and was written by Russell.

At least two tornadoes swept through Chester and Montgomery counties about 25 miles outside the city late Wednesday night, their 200-mph winds cutting 100-yard swaths through farmland and woods. One of the twisters touched down in Royersford, Montgomery County, skipped north into Limerick Township less than two miles from PECO Energy's nuclear generating station, and crushed a new 108-acre housing subdivision called The Hamlet. More than a dozen homes were destroyed, others received varying degrees of damage. And in a house they had purchased less than a year ago, a pair of 28-year-old parents and their 10-month-old daughter were killed. The dead were identified as Daniel Thompson III, a nine-year PECO employee who worked in the information systems unit at PECO's Limerick Generating Station; his wife, Laura, a secretary at PECO's Nuclear Generating Group Headquarters in Chester-brook and a seven-year employee of the utility, and their daughter, Mikhayla.

Yesterday afternoon, after directing an efficiently organized daylong emergency-response effort. Limerick Township Sgt. William Schlichter told reporters he'd never seen anything like it. "I couldn't believe what the radio dispatcher was telling me," Schlichter said, recalling how the first emergency call woke him in bed. "He had to repeat it three times: 'a tornado, Code Residents said they didn't know what had hit them.

"I know it's a cliche, everybody says it sounds like a freight train," said Bill Murphy, whose garage was destroyed, crushing a vintage antique Cadillac. "But it really did sound like a freight train." Standing in front of what was once the victims' home all that remained was the cement block foundation Schlichter could only describe it as "a total disaster." On streets called Victory Way and Crowne Place, smart-looking, two-story frame $150,000 houses called "The Stratford" and "The Chelsea" lay in ruin, like collapsed dollhouses. Vinyl siding ripped from plywood walls flapped in the wind, casement windows were blown onto front lawns and masonry walls were now mere rubble. "A lot of people just moved into these homes," Patrolman Bill Bayler said grimly. "They're young couples, hard-working people with children, and they've just seen their dreams go up in smoke." A sneaker, a tea kettle, an exercise machine, a gas barbecue grille homeowners' posses- ASSOCIATED PRESS Nuclear plant cooling tower looms a short distance from this devasted development in Limerick Detail -Y area Limerick Nuclear 3 1 Power Plant OPath of I Limerick tornado Township J' 1 12 MILE Killer tornadoes rare here 6v Ramona Smith Daily News Staff Writer You thought about those nuclear cooling towers right away, didn't you? The deadly tornado that tore through Limerick missed PECO Energy's nuclear power plant by more than two miles.

But suppose it had slammed into the twin reactors 35 miles northwest of Philadelphia? Would we have been nuked? No, we would not, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission says. "Nuclear power plants are designed to withstand hurricanes and tornados and to shut down safely in the event of an earthquake," regional NRC spokesman Karl Abraham said. "You could crash into them with a jet airplane and they wouldn't have any damage," said PECO spokesman Michael Wood. There are no guarantees, but NRC and utility officials say that the tornadq risks at a plant are, spJrerQolte.rat Ib.e, main concern would be losing transmission lines needed to carry power to customers. In the control room at Limerick Wednesday night, there was no warning of a tornado.

The wind at the plant topped out at a mere 20 mph. Wood said. The horrible irony was that a plant employee, Daniel Thompson III, died at home, along with his wife and their 10-month-old daughter, in the twister that packed 150-to 200-mph winds. Hurricane Andrew, however, battered the Turkey Point nuclear plant in Florida with 145 mph winds and 175-mph gusts in 1992. The structure stood firm, said NRC spokeswoman Sue Gagner.

But the plant shut down, causing widespread power outages, as power lines in and out of the plant were severely damaged. The Limerick nukes are designed to withstand winds of 300 mph or an earthquake with a 6.0 reading on the Richter scale more severe than ever recorded lu aijii.i i DAILY NEWS MAP said, about six have occurred. Harold Vanasse, chief meteorologist at the Franklin Institute, said more are possible. "We're in the midst of hurricane season. Hurricanes spawn tornadoes." Vanasse said tornadoes occur when two drastically different air masses a cool front and warm, humid air, for instance meet.

Tornadoes form so fast that forecasting them is very difficult, Vanasse said. "A lot of times you're forecasting them based on what you've seen developing down the road. "It's almost what we call now-casting." I i Ol QibTTTTjjSlQrJaiaflipiSl- Tornadoes aren't all that uncommon for the Philadelphia area. But killer tornadoes like Wednesday night's are. Experts say they could come once every five to every 20 years.

Indeed the last killer tornado in the area occurred in September 1979, in Chester County, when a mushroom worker died in his trailer home in Avondale. Chet Hendricksen, chief of the area's National Weather Service offices, said we're getting more tornadoes this year than usual. "We're running way above normal this year," he said. Normally the aiqa Jwopj a summer. So far, Hendricksen In addition, because they're near an airport and a Conrail track, the twin generators are designed to survive "a direct hit by a small jet plane" or "any kind of munitions or.

chemical explosion from a freight' train," said tJonesJ(ljl..