Multiple tornado touchdowns, Brunswick County already feeling impacts of Dorian

BRUNSWICK COUNTY, NC (WWAY) — Brunswick County officials confirmed several tornado touchdowns throughout the county Thursday morning.

Emergency Services Director Ed Conrow says one tornado touchdown was confirmed in the area of Calabash.

Tornado warnings were issued for the county throughout the morning as Hurricane Dorian gets closer to our coast.

Around noon, Brunswick Electric reported around 1,000 power outages throughout the county, which was down from 1,300.

Power crews were out along Ash-Little River Road already working on power lines. Telephone poles along this road were already tilted and power lines were dipping low to the ground.

Neighbors along Ash-Little River Road say they heard a tornado go right between their houses. One neighbor says he turned on the T.V. and immediately heard the tornado rip through.

In a storage lot, boats and RVs were left flipped over and a trailer left upside down. An electric worker says a family was inside one of the RVs at the time, but he thinks they got out safely.

Across the street, limbs were down all around two houses and one major tree was completely uprooted. It did not appear to hit either house on its way down.

In the Carolina Shores neighborhood of The Farm at Brunswick, rows of homes were destroyed.

Roofs were ripped off, siding was left dangling from homes and things like mattresses, insulation and fences were all left scattered in the yards.

Neighbors say they heard what sounded like a train whistling through the neighborhood. One neighbor says he just saw things swirling and then heard the doors inside his house slam shut.

“I was out there removing everything and the next thing you know, I looked up above the houses and there was just stuff swirling,” David Jones. “I’m thinking, ‘Okay, you know, just stuff blowing around.’ Next thing you know it was going up and it was going higher and higher and higher. That’s when I came in and yelled at everybody to get inside.”

The tornadoes seemed to do severe damage to certain houses, but leave things just a few houses down essentially untouched.

WWAY will continue to bring you the latest updates out of Brunswick County.