Georgette Burnham and her husband Earl were driving home in the rain along Boyds Corner Road north of Middletown when they saw a firetruck behind them.
They let it pass, and it turned into their Bayberry South neighborhood.
“When I looked to my right, I could see our home and I said, ‘What happened to our siding? What is going on?” Georgette said.
They didn’t know a tornado had just ripped through the area northeast of Middletown.
When they arrived at their home, firetrucks lined the road. When they went inside, they saw their son, Jordan, 34, was there, and he was OK.
“I cried. I was so thankful. God saved him,” Georgette said.
Rated an EF-1 on the Enhanced Fujita scale and with wind speeds reaching up to 100 mph, the tornado began at 4:49 p.m. Sunday near Boyds Corner Road and the Bayberry community.
The most significant damage was reported north of Boyds Corner Road on Bullen Drive in Grande View Farms, where the National Weather Service said that one home had an upstairs window blown out, an exterior wall nearly collapsed and an attached garage roof blown off into the front yard.
No injuries were reported.
‘I didn’t know how long it would last’
Jordan Burnham was in his parents’ home in Bayberry South when the storm hit.
“I didn’t see anything. I heard it,” Jordan said. “I was up on the second floor. It was raining really, really hard.”
He knew there were thunderstorm warnings but hadn’t heard anything about a tornado.
“There were two gusts. The first gust was scary. I knew I had to get downstairs,” he said. “The second gust, I felt the house shaking. The windows were rattling. I knew I had to get to the basement. The scary part was I didn’t know how long it would last.”
But 30 seconds later, the wind died down, as the heavy rain continued. Water was dripping down to the basement. When he went up to the first floor, the water was pouring into the sunroom.
“I didn’t realize why. Then I saw part of the roof had been torn off,” Jordan said. “I started running around getting buckets and bins, trying to save what I could.”
The Burnhams lost the back part of their roof and some siding. An exterior wall looks like it’s shifted a bit and nails have been slightly pushed out in several areas. They’ve covered the roof with a tarp, and large fans are running inside, drying the spots where the rain poured in.
A piece of wood from the roof was found five houses away. Siding was scattered in trees behind their home.
“The most amazing thing to me is the windows didn’t shatter,” said Jordan.
He was also surprised to find out how concentrated the tornado was.
“I was texting my sister and brother-in-law about the winds and the damage to our parents’ house. They live just a few minutes away, and they didn’t know what I was talking about,” said Jordan. “They didn’t get this where they live.”
National Weather Service representatives were in the neighborhood, surveying the damage, he said.
More:Tornadoes aren’t atypical for Delaware. And like Sunday’s, they often come without warning
‘It was pretty crazy’
Chris Brooks was in his pool with his family at his home in Grande View Farms near Bullen Drive just before the storm hit.
“We saw lightning and so we went inside. It was pretty crazy. It went from zero to 100 in just a few minutes with very high winds,” he said.
He saw a large branch fly by in front of the bay window. The umbrella on their back deck table was closed, but all of a sudden it opened and floated up in the air for three or four seconds, then slammed down on the glass-topped table and shattered it.
“That’s when we got everyone in the basement,” Brooks said. “I was surprised we didn’t lose power. Probably 10 minutes later it was all over, but the rain kept coming down.”
There was damage to some siding on their home, and two large trees were uprooted. One tree was blown over several feet from their swing set and playground which weren’t damaged at all.
“It was nuts because at first people were saying it was just high winds, but the trees were blown down in all different directions and it hit one thing and missed another so I thought it had to have been a tornado,” Brooks said.
While the damage to homes and trees will be difficult to deal with, Brooks said he’s thankful no one was injured, and he’s proud of the way the neighbors came out to help each other.
Surveying the damage and cleanup
At least five homes in Bayberry South had roof and/or siding damage near Stravinsky Avenue at Chopin Drive and Puccini Lane.
Nearby, on the north side of Boyds Corner Road, the large letters spelling out “Bayberry North” were bent at the entrance to the community.
Along North Bayberry Parkway, trees were uprooted, limbs were snapped and parts of the white plastic fence were damaged.
Farther east along Boyds Corner Road in the Grande View Farms neighborhood, trees were blown over or snapped off and several homes were hit, mainly along Bullen Lane near Hyett’s Corner Road. The garage roof of one home was ripped off. Another home had parts of a wall torn away. Several homes were missing shingles or siding.
Tree removal companies were sawing up fallen trees and putting them through chippers.
Jeremy Casey, owner of Diamond State Tree Experts, said his crew had removed 63 trees so far after the tornado.
“We were out Sunday night taking trees off houses. We’ve pretty much got all the emergency work done, and we’ve moved on to removing trees that didn’t fall on anything,” Casey said.
From the path of damage he saw, “It seems like it jumped and bounced around,” Casey said. “One street is bad, but the next street doesn’t have any damage at all.”
New Castle County Executive Matt Meyer was surveying the damage Tuesday.
“It’s incredible to see the power of the storm and to know everybody’s OK,” said Meyer. “I’m thankful for that but also concerned. New Castle County is not really a place you’d think about tornadoes happening, but we’ve now had two big ones happen in the last three years.”
Meyer said he and the county staff are evaluating the county’s emergency response systems, and they want to look at the alert system with the National Weather Service after the lack of a tornado alert for the Middletown area before the storm hit.
Reach reporter Ben Mace at rmace@gannett.com.
