NWS says homes damaged in Hockessin not due to tornado

The National Weather Service has determined that the wind that damaged parts of northwest Delaware Monday night was not a tornado.

The agency will release a full report by the end of the day on Tuesday, but said it was ”straight line winds“ that caused the damage. Straight line winds do not rotate like tornado winds but can reach 100 mph.

Monday’s storm path stretched from Newark into parts of Pennsylvania, with residents in the Brookside and Hockessin areas reporting some of the worst damage in the First State. Many homes remain without power.

Meteorologist Eric Hoeflich said wind gusts in Hockessin reached between 45 and 55 mph, ripping out trees and damaging homes. And while it isn’t unheard of for such a storm to brew in the late summer, Hoeflich said “it’s rare that we get something that intense” past the spring.

Aftermath of the storm

In the Cherokee Woods neighborhood Tuesday morning, numerous large trees were downed, ripped straight from their roots. Residents gathered outside to assess the damage, which work crews were busily trying to clean up.

Jeff Herbster was one of those residents. One of his front yard trees was uprooted, and a power pole had fallen onto his truck. He said behind his house, a tree had crashed through his deck and partially landed on his roof, but his house was otherwise unscathed.

He said his wife had tried reaching out to their local state House representative for help but got hung up on before being able to speak to him. He said the damage was surprising.“I’ve only ever seen something like this on TV before,” he said.

Surveying the damage

New Castle County Executive Matt Meyer toured the storm damage with the Office of Emergency Management on Tuesday morning.

He said as a kid growing up in Delaware, this kind of thing would happen once every 10 or 15 years. Now he feels like it’s happening every year or every other year.

Other county officials were going house by house, posting red “unsafe” signs in the window of homes they deemed unsafe in the Cherokee Woods neighborhood.

A county inspector who was assessing homes for structural issues said he was making his determination based on several factors, but largely whether the homes are structurally sound. He said several on East Cherokee Drive will need to be looked at by an engineer, while others will need new roofs at minimum.

He called one home that was completely unscathed, located between two damaged houses, “a miracle.” He then placed a green sign on the window indicating that the house had been inspected and was safe.

Fallen trees, missing pets

Many of the homes were damaged by falling trees. Neighborhood resident Jenn Luna said she was in her bedroom last night and exited the room. As she left, a tree came through the bedroom. She just missed being hit.

“It definitely could’ve been worse,” Luna said. “I’m very grateful right now.”

Luna said she initially thought it was a regular storm and began her usual routine of making sure all the windows were closed. But when she got to her bedroom, she heard the wind howling and saw trees swaying outside. She thought a tornado may be brewing and ran downstairs.

The tree ended up going through the bedroom, though she was left unhurt.

Others weren’t so lucky. One woman had several broken bones — including broken ribs — after being hit by a tree while inside her home. She has since been hospitalized, and her husband and neighbors were outside Tuesday morning searching for a missing puppy.

An Animal Welfare officer also came to help out, going as far as to climb through a home’s window to try to find a missing 7-month-old puppy. When the officer reemerged, she said she heard what she thought may be the puppy, but due to chainsaws on nearby streets and other local dogs barking, she couldn’t be sure.

A fallen tree inside the home prevented her from being able to get in far enough to continue the search and she later left, saying she wasn’t particularly optimistic about the outcome.

Road closures in Hockessin

Fallen trees in Hockessin blocked traffic throughout several area roads on Tuesday.

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NWS says homes damaged in Hockessin not due to tornado

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