The Daily News from Lebanon, Pennsylvania • 3

Lebanon Daily News, Thursday, July 1 5, 2004 3 A Tornado? Witnesses report seeing telltale funnel clouds probably be made after National Weather Service officials fly over the area. Usually it takes a fly-over to determine whether or not it was a tornado, although there have been numerous reports of funnel clouds, he said. Theyll be looking for a twisted path of debris, including tree branches, entire trees and collapsed buildings. The type of debris and how it is strewn about are usually used to determine whether or not it was a tornado and how funnel clouds, telltale signs of a tornado. Dave Sanko, head of the state EMA, agreed.

After surveying the scene from a helicopter, he said the evidence points to a tornado. Im not a meteorologist, but I think anyone would be hard-pressed to look at that damage and say that it wasnt something significant, he said. Carl Babinski, a meteorologist for Accu Weather, said the determination will By JOHN LATIMER Staff Writer CAMPBELLTOWN Officials from the National Weather Service were expected to visit South Londonderry Township today to determine if yesterdays storm was a tornado, as many people believe. As he surveyed the damage yesterday, Daniel Kauffman, director of Lebanon Countys Emergency Management Agency, said many people told him they had seen severe it was. Like hurricanes, Babinski said, tornados are graded on a scale of severity called a Fujita-Pearson scale.

With trees uprooted and houses collapsed, he suspects that yesterdays storm was an F-2 tornado with winds ranging between 113 to 157 miles per hour or an F-l tornado with winds between 73 and 112 mph. The highest level of tornado is an F-5, packing winds in excess of 300 mph. The Associated Press Derry Township police officer Terry Clements picks his way across a pile of debris that hours earlier had been the home of fellow-officer Garth Warner. In its fury, the storm ripped this 2-by-4 framing member from somebodys house and hurled it like a spear through a cars windshield. Dozens of homes destroyed by ferocious wind (From page 1A) because of downed utility wires and were not expected to be open until after 3 p.m.

Route 322 between Campbelltown and Route 934 was closed, and Route 241 from Route 322 south to Gretna Road was closed. Lawn Road also was closed this morning, officials said. The Campbelltown Volunteer Fire Co. building was used as a triage center, where the injured were taken before being transported to the Hershey Medical Center, a few miles to the west. The fire station also served as central command for emergency personnel and caregivers from the American Red Cross, who registered an estimated 150 residents after they were evacuated from the neighborhood as a second storm rolled through the area about 6 p.m.

Several hours after the devastating storm, local and state officials gathered at the fire station, working together to help residents start to pick up the pieces. A county-wide disaster was declared at 5.37 p.m. by county Commissioners Larry Stohler and Jo Ellen Litz, who witnessed the devastation during a helicopter ride. The third commissioner, Bill Carpenter, was out of The Associated Press Residents of Country Squire Estates scramble onto a school bus as a second storm approaches the Cambelltown area last evening. They were taken to a shelter set up at Campbelltown Fire Co.

Jim Zengerie Lebanon Daily News A cars windows and taillights are smashed and its body hammered and misshapen in the storms wake. Squire Estates in 1975, and there are about 80 houses there, most of them two stories with garages, said Scott Galbraith, South Londonderrys assistant manager. A few homes were still under construction. Building inspectors were called in last night to begin house-by-house inspections, county administrator Jamie Wolgemuth said. Residents of homes that are structurally sound were allowed to return, while others were forced to seek shelter else where, he said, either with relatives or with the help of the Red Cross.

Safety is number one, Wolgemuth said. We dont want to put residents in a home, and later tonight be dealing with an entrapment. Kauffman added that curiosity-seekers were a problem. He urged people with no reason to be in the area to stay away. State and local police were called in to secure the homes left vacant overnight.

devastating scene from the air, I can assure you. These are days that will change peoples lives, and our hearts go out to the families who have had losses. And we will do our level best to start with those damage assessments, and to go through the process and figure out how to help people rebuild their lives through the county structure here. The first step was figuring out if victims could return to their homes. Building began at Country tor of the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency, visited the area about 7 p.m.

After surveying the area by state-police helicopter, Sanko met with county and township officials, including Kauffman and South Londonderry Supervisor David Turner. Sanko pledged that the state would do whatever it could to help in the recovery. All disasters are local, he said during a news conference afterwards. This is a town. Our hearts go out to the victims of this disaster, Stohler said.

Whatever resources we have we are going to commit to help these people get back to a normal life. From the air, it is obvious there is a significant amount of damage done. Some houses are leveled; some agricultural buildings are leveled; and a lot of trees are down. At the request of Gov. Ed Rendell, Dave Sanko, direc Survivors tell harrowing tales of storms furious assault (From page 1A) The next moment a tree smashed into the bedroom window, just inches from her.

Moments later, most of the roof blew off, exposing the second floor. Everything was going crazy, Simmers recalled about two hours later. The wind was blowing everything around, so I grabbed my dog and huddled with her in the closet until the door to the closet blew open. Simmers managed to make it downstairs to safety. The ordeal lasted only 10 minutes, destroying a barn and garage, but it seemed like 10 hours, she said.

Later, a demoralized Simmers sat hugging her dog, slumped against an outside wall at the Campbelltown Fire Co. She had gone there after police evacuated her neighborhood about 6 p.m. when another storm threatened the area. She had just learned that the second floor of her home, which was built in 1809, had collapsed, and the stone walls were crumbling. She wasnt sure it could be saved.

We lost so much, Simmers said. All the crystal and the pictures, pictures, pictures. I guess I should just be more thankful that my family and friends are OK. and Tara Jankouskas, was worried about his missing dog. The Palmyra Area Middle School seventh-grader was home alone, watching TV and playing a one-man game of chess when the sky grew dark.

At first, he didnt think the storm was that unusual, even when the lights went out. When the power went off, I turned the TV off and looked out the back window, he said. It was just drizzling, and then it started pouring. Then I went over to the couch, and all the windows blew out. After the storm died down, Jankouskas looked out the back window to find that the dog kennel housing his golden retrievers, Comet and Maddie, was gone.

Maddie was cowering on the back porch, but there was no sign of Comet, he said sadly. Lindsay Simmers took comfort from her toy poodle, Sammy, when the storm descended on her nearly 200-year-old farmhouse at 510 Coachman Lane in Country Squire Estates. Simmers, who has lived in the house with her husband, Gene, for the past 2 years, was making the bed upstairs when the storm struck. She heard glass breaking. watching television in her living room at the storms start when she saw her porch furniture fly straight up into the air.

She ran to her basement to wait out the storm. It sounded like a horrible roar, and everything moved, she said. Boards from other houses smashed windows in the Seamans home, and debris was scattered throughout their house. She said the roof lifted off the house and settled back down. Her antique baby grand piano built in 1922 was damaged.

Everywhere I look, I find something different damaged, she After the storm moved past, Seamans neighbors went up and down the street checking on each other, she said. A block away, Kurt Yordy was surveying the wreckage of a structure at his farm on Lawn Road, where he keeps nine black angus steers. He could not account for all of them after the storm but was unsure if any of them was harmed. When the storm hit, Yordy was inside his house, watching as a maple tree fell on his home. Two pine trees in his yard also snapped and fell.

John Latimer Lebanon Daily News Lindsay Simmers (in car) and son-in-law Mike Sinanovich survey the damage to Simmers 200-year-old farmhouse. guess I should be more thankful that my family and friends are she said. All of this stuff came from there, said Doug Brandt, pointing to the wood and shingles that littered his yard at 167 Lawn Road. Some of the material had punched a huge hole underneath the eaves of Brandts roof, and the interior had suffered rain damage, he said. Around the comer from Brandts home, on Eagle Drive, 12-year-old Bret Jankouskas, son of Robert It was blowing really hard, he said.

The storm picked up rafters from Yordys collapsed workshop and dumped them about 50 yards away. A pickup truck in the building was damaged, but one of Yordys prized possessions was untouched. My Harley got saved, he said. Debris from Yordys property pelted his neighbors home..