The Baltimore Sun from Baltimore, Maryland • 48

Page 6a Tuesday, September 25, 2001 The Sun ousands 01 students evacuated from dorms Tornado, from Page 1a A 1 -if Classroom ruins: A tornado damaged this room and several others at Laurel High School. The storm, part of a system that also sprouted tornadoes in Virginia and Pennsylvania, ripped off part of the roof and caused damage to a townhouse neighborhood nearby. said, including a tractor trailer traveling on the Capital Beltway north of U.S.I. The Beltway remained open, but U.S. 1 was closed in both directions in College Park while workers cleared damaged cars, downed power lines and trees.

Witnesses described the storm as a sudden, violent maelstrom that was all the more terrifying because it summoned still-raw images of the terrorist attacks Sept. 11. Jason Yellin, 27, of Columbia was driving home on Route 193 near the Stadium Drive intersection in College Park when the skies grew black, the wind started gusting, and branches flew off trees. "All of a sudden, my back window shatters all over me. The parts of trees start shooting into my car.

It's filled with tree parts everywhere. My front-side door opens. It's not flush to the front, but it's angled toward the front. Now I'm scared to death," he said. "Immediately, I thought of everything that happened last week.

I felt like this tornado was going to lift me up and take me away. So I was absolutely scared. "Later I heard that two people had died. It was 100 yards from where I was." Michael J. Wilson, 17, a Maryland freshman, was standing in his room on the first floor of the Eas-ton dormitory when the tornado hit.

"You could almost see the wind. It was actually black," he said. He ran to stand underneath the door frame, remembering scenes from the movie Twister. "There was the running of the college students, literally by the hundreds. A lot of people are panicking." He described the north campus dining hall as looking like a "ripped cat toy," with broken windows and shredded blinds.

Senior economics major Matt Lariviere was getting ready for his fraternity's chapter meeting when he saw the tornado rip through campus from the doorstep of the Beta Theta Pi house. The 21-year-old and three friends jumped in a car and followed the path of the twister from Fraternity Row to the high-rise dormitories on the north side of campus. "It was just a wreck," Lariviere said of the parking lot behind the Elkton, Denton and Easton residence halls. "On every car in the lot and there were about 600 cars the windows were broken. Thirty to 50 cars were just tossed and flipped over." Tahj Holden, 20, a junior forward with the Terrapins basketball team, was playing a pickup game at Cole Field House when the lights began to flash.

Someone opened a door to see what was happening, and the wind ripped it from its hinges. Glendening arrived at the campus shortly after 9 p.m. to survey the damage. Seeing the damage wrought in his home gave him a sense of what it must have been like for New York officials to witness the destruction in lower Manhattan, he said. University of Maryland campus damage Institute site -6 Clarice 'i N) Presidents Dr.

University of Priiw Gm'u- College Park JJap Rumpus Or area 1 1 mi ji ri DENISE HURRAY SUN STAFF "Now, literally going back to my hometown fortunately the damage is not nearly as extensive but going back literally to my hometown to see all this damage, is almost surreal," said Glendening, a former Prince George's County executive who taught at the university for 23 years. The storm touched down just as University of Maryland catering staff were serving a banquet for Prince George's County officials under a tent outside the performing arts center. Catering operations manager Ken Albright said the guests were fretting about whether it would start to rain when he turned and saw the funnel cloud coming at them. "I yelled, 'Everyone get "Albright said. When the storm struck, it upended the banquet tables, sending Gleeber, 19, a student from Elkton and volunteer emergency medical technician, raced outside the Eas-ton dormitory to see if anyone was hurt.

He saw the car about 75 feet above his head, he said. "I saw the car flying in the air. I could see the bottom of it," Gleeber said. "It dropped. It just hit the ground." University officials said last night that the victims were Maryland students but did not identify them.

The storm touched down at the northern end of campus, near the football stadium and the dormitories where many freshmen live. It destroyed several trailers used by the Maryland Fire and Rescue Institute outside the university's new performing arts center, trapping five people who were pulled out with minor injuries, Prince George's County fire spokesman Chauncey Bowers said. The seven people in the trailer learned of the storm when one employee received a report of a tornado in Hyattsville on her pager. Two minutes later, they heard the wind, and everyone dove under the tables. Ann Davidson, the institute's director of administration, grabbed a nearby desk.

"The rest of me was airborne," she said. "Clearly anybody who survives this kind of devastation feels kind of lucky and blessed." Davidson's 12-year-old daughter, Imogen Davidson White, was temporarily trapped under the strewn rubble and the desk she used for cover. Toby Wilson, a copy specialist, was the only one thrown from the building. He spotted a branch whipping by the window as the storm approached and "then the whole trailer shifted," he said. "The next thing I knew, I was out here about 75 feet to 80 feet away" in the mud, he said.

"I've had better days." Still, he came away with only cuts and bruises. Bowers, of the Prince George's County fire department, said at least 50 people were injured in the storm. At least 15 of them were being treated last night at area hospitals. The storm also shattered windows at the arts center, damaged the north campus dining hall and toppled the steeple of the Pentecostal Holiness Church on Route 193, whose entire side was caved in. Up U.S.

1 in Beltsville, the storm caused a fertilizer leak at Behnke's nursery, which was being investigated last night. Last night, about 3,000 students were evacuated from their dorms and moved into temporary overnight quarters as investigators checked on propane leaks caused by the storm. "There's a lot of damage, a lot of debris," university spokesman George Cathcart said. "We're still trying to sort things out." About 50 cars were upended in College Park, with dozens more reported in the area, fire officials 10 Safe and sound: SharonLeaman neighbor, 4-year-old Marcus Moore, a KENNETH K. LAM SUN STAFF gate a propane leak, sending students looking for a place to spend the night.

The storm spared the southern end of campus, where most upper-classmen live, and where students reported little more than a heavy rainstorm. The tornado comes three weeks after the unexplained death of a Junior found dead at his frat house. "It's just the beginning of the year, and every week there is something different," said Beatrice Ridore, 21, a senior. "It's just too hard to concentrate right now." The tornado started at about 4 p.m. in Spotsylvania, Va.

when a cold, dry front that stretched from Virginia to Canada collided with warm, moist air, said Jim Travers, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Sterling, Va. It moved north along Interstate 95 through Fairfax County, bypassing Washington. The storm apparently "skipped" along its path instead of staying on the ground, where it could have caused considerably more damage, Travers said. The storm caused other tornadoes, including one that started near Culpeper, and died out in Loudoun County, and another in York County, Pa. Travers said more tornadoes were unlikely.

"It could have been a lot worse considering how long the storm path was," Travers said. Sun staff writers Laura Barnhardt, Julie Bykowicz, Christian Ewell, Caltlin Francke, Lisa Goldberg, Sarah Koenig, Howard Libit, Jennifer McMenamin, Michael Scarcella, Jason Song and special correspondent Kieran Leary contributed to this article. ripped off Six of its 10 classrooms were left too damaged for use, according to Principal Martin J. Martirano. A group of social studies teachers assembled after the tornado, hoping to examine the damage to their rooms.

Pat Flynn, a social studies teacher there for 30 years, said the roof over his room was gone. The room's contents had been blown around or were simply missing, he said: "I have no idea if anything is salvageable." Athletic director Terry Parfitt was inside the school's stadium press box, watching a girls soccer game before the tornado blew through. He said he saw a green tint to the sky before it hit. He got out before the tornado blew away the roof. Emanuel Livingston, a custodian, said classrooms inside the annex were left littered with debris.

"You could hear it coming," he said of the storm. "You know when the tornado's gone." School will be open The main portion of the school escaped damage, said the principal, who decided that the school would be open today because the main building is "structurally sound." By nightfall, darkness and lightly falling mist concealed the extent of damage around Laurel. "We won't know until today how bad the damage is," said Collins, the town spokesman. Staff writers Julie Bykowicz and Caitlyn Francke contributed to this article. Vv i.i" 4 "r.v- Close call: James Bufkin (right) campus.

The tornado blew his car tortellini, beef and chicken flying in the air and shattering wine bottles, said campus dining service employees James Minano of College Park and Matthew Rogers of Columbia. They rushed to help those trapped beneath the rubble of the nearby construction trailers, they said. The storm blew out a skylight in Bernard Schillinger's office in the Denton dining hall, but the 200 or so students in the dining hall were evacuated safely, said Schil-linger, a catering manager. Freshman Llndsey Koren's there are trees down everywhere." Trees were uprooted in what appeared to be a mile-long swath into Laurel, according to Jim Collins, town spokesman. He said the funnel cloud touched down near the high school, and the path of destruction was about four blocks wide.

Historic buildings collapse Two buildings in historic Laurel collapsed, he said, spilling bricks into the street. But unlike College Park, where two people were killed, only a few minor injuries were reported in Laurel. In Beltsville, about five miles to the south, damage ranged from blown-off shingles to homes left smashed by fallen trees. Some cars sported broken windows; others were smashed. The neighborhood surrounding Beltsville Elementary was littered with downed trees, many of them split in half and making streets impassable.

Trees with trunks as large as three feet in diameter were uprooted. Maren Mayhew, 52, who lives on Cedar Lane, wandered through her neighborhood with a flashlight in disbelief. A resident of Beltsville for about 50 years, she pointed to a vacant area where a row of pine trees stood an hour earlier. While her house escaped damage, she lost about 20 trees each 50 years or older. As the storm bore down on Beltsville, Martha Jones, 89, was literally swept off her feet by MMIMIIMtUIIIIIIU In Laurel, roof of high school annex -3S ML C- fist OENE SWEENEY JR.

BUN STAFF sits near an entrance to the UM onto a sidewalk. American cultures class was attending a presentation with a cast member of Survivor II at a north campus building when a woman rushed in and told the class to move into a room at the center of the building, away from the windows. "There is a huge tree cracked in half outside my building," Koren said. "I knew there was a tornado watch, but that usually doesn't get serious around here." Last night, campus officials dormitories near the performing arts center to investi son-in-law Donald Wolfe, minutes before a tree split and sliced into the first floor of her home on Prince Georges Avenue. "I've never seen anything like this," said Jones, a resident of Beltsville since 1942.

"And I have lived through a lot." A pungent pine odor hung in the air as residents wandered about the area, surveying the damage amid a buzz of chainsaws. Some people used axes to hack away at trees that were blocking roads. Whole new game At Laurel High, Spriggs and Coach Mike Rudden had been reviewing a game video with the varsity and junior varsity football players of a Friday night loss to Beltsville's High Point High School Eagles when the storm hit. Spriggs said lights in the building started flashing, and halls filled with debris as the players and coaches ran for cover. "People wanted to run outside but we told them to stay on the ground," Spriggs said.

A group of players sought refuge inside a windowless annex restroom, he said, while others remained in a brick-wall hallway. "It was quick, but I tell you what: it seemed to be several minutes," said Rudden said. "It was utter chaos." The annex, connected to the main portion of the school by a tunnel, houses locker rooms, weight rooms, the foreign language department and social studies wing. 'I I 1 KENNETH K. LAM SUN STAFF (left) hugs her Belle Ami Drive after the tornado passed.

rr: y.r. Football players scamper for safety; many trees felled By Michael Scarcella and Lisa Goldberg SUN STAFF Duck and run was not in the playbook, but Laurel High School's Spartans football team did just that last night when a tornado lifted the roof off part of a school building where they were huddling over the video of their weekend game. Players and coaches found themselves running the halls and then taking refuge inside a rest-room of Laurel High's annex buildinga former elementary school where six classrooms were heavily damaged. "It sounded like a train coming through the school," said Raymond L. Spriggs, assistant varsity coach.

"The roof was totally ripped off above the classrooms. "A lot of the stuff inside the classrooms is outside." Widespread damage The tornado moving northeastward and wreaking destruction from College Park to portions of eastern Howard County caused widespread damage in the Laurel area. Town Mayor Frank P. Casula declared a state of emergency. "I am encouraging people to stay in houses," he said.

"Power lines are down and.