Daniel Bawel, 78, identified as Greenwood tornado victim

The man killed Saturday evening when a tornado swept through parts of Sussex County has been identified as 78-year-old Daniel Bawel of Greenwood.

Bawel was Delaware’s first tornado fatality in 40 years. He was at his Tuckers Road home with his wife, Connie Bawel, when the EF3 tornado hit and reduced their house to rubble.

His granddaughter, Makenzie Harriman, was boarding a plane to come to Delaware on Tuesday. She said her family is grieving.

Harriman created a GoFundMe to benefit her grandmother. The tornado, she wrote, resulted “in my grandmother not only losing her home, but her husband, and everything except the shirt on her back.”

The April 1 tornado tore a 14-mile path across Bridgeville, Greenwood and Ellendale, according to the National Weather Service. Only one other tornado in recorded Delaware history has been ranked an EF3, in 1961. The Delaware Emergency Management Agency reports over 60 homes and other buildings were damaged.

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