Month: July 2023

Friday, July 21, 2023 2:54PM NORTH CAROLINA — As people impacted by Wednesday’s tornado in Nash County, people and some businesses are doing their part to help. Friday, Food Lion announced they’re one of those businesses trying to make it a little easier for its neighbors and consumers in parts of Nash County. The grocery store chain is giving away free water and a $20 gift card as a part of responding to the increase…

Friday, July 21, 2023 1:51PM ROCKY MOUNT, N.C. (WTVD) — Crews are still working to assess the damage at the Pfizer plant in Rocky Mount. This afternoon the company’s CEO, Dr. Albert Bourla, is expected to visit the plant hit hard by the tornado earlier this week. Pfizer is the largest employer in Nash County with more than 2,000 employees. The factory makes nearly 25% of Pfizer’s sterile injectable medicine used in hospitals all across…

Tornado survivors in Nash County are surveying the damage after their homes were ripped to shreds by the strongest tornado to hit central North Carolina in 12 years. “We’re just blessed no one was injured,” Brian Varnell said after three of his family’s homes were destroyed during Wednesday’s EF-3 tornado. “These are all material things that can be replaced,” he said. While the frequency and intensity of tornadoes have remained fairly steady in recent decades,…

Friday, July 21, 2023 1:52AM ROCKY MOUNT, N.C. (WTVD) — A Rocky Mount couple living in the Belmont Lakes Preserve recounted their brush with an EF-3 tornado during Wednesday’s storms. Homeowners Mark and Joyce spoke with ABC11 on Thursday while roofing teams worked on their home that had its roof torn off and windows blown out. “I was just entering the house and said ‘Mark do you know there’s a tornado warning?’ And he said…

EDGECOMBE COUNTY, N.C. — Recovery efforts continued in Nash and Edgecombe Counties on Thursday night following the devastating EF-3 tornado that touched down on Wednesday afternoon. With estimated wind speeds of up to 150 miles per hour, the tornado caused significant damage to homes, businesses, and infrastructure. In Nash County, the tornado touched down near the town of Dortches and tracked northeast for 16.5 miles. The path of destruction included the Belmont Lake Golf Course,…

NASH COUNTY, N.C. (WTVD) — The destruction left in the wake of Wednesday’s EF-3 tornado shocked communities in Nash County. “I’ve never witnessed the damage that this tornado did,” said Todd Wells, assistant fire chief at the Red Oaks Volunteer Fire Department. “I look at the trees and you take a tree that I can’t wrap my arms around and it’s snapped off like a matchstick. I can’t believe it.” Wells has lived and worked…

Thursday, July 20, 2023 11:21PM ROCKY MOUNT, N.C. (WTVD) — Neighbors told ABC11 that when they got home Wednesday night, their Nash County community looked like a war zone. Debris lined the road. In the aftermath of the tornado, it’s been about neighbors helping neighbors. Roofing workers out of a company in Wilson offered free tarping services because they said the community needs their help. Another man said he didn’t get to lay his mother…

ROCKY MOUNT, N.C. — St. Stephen’s Loving Daycare Center in Rocky Mount has some repairs to do after Wednesday’s EF3 tornado damaged the ceiling and shattered a window. “We saw the devastation of everything,” Carolyn Slade said. As the tornado approached, there were 67 children playing inside at the day care center at 3861 North Wesleyan Blvd. in Rocky Mount. No one was injured thanks to quick actions of Slade and her staff. “Of course,…

ROCKY MOUNT, N.C. — It had been 56 years since North Carolina had seen a tornado in July had wrecked the kind of havoc that we saw on Wednesday in Nash and Edgecombe counties. The only other EF3 tornado to occur in July in North Carolina was on July 4, 1967, in Gates County, according to WRAL meteorologist Aimee Wilmoth. The National Weather Service confirmed the EF3 tornado had estimated peak winds of 150 mph…

Thursday, July 20, 2023 10:21PM BATTLEBORO, N.C. (WTVD) — Dozens of homes and a pair of churches were damaged along the Nash-Edgecombe county line when a tornado tore through the community Wednesday. One of the homes damaged belongs to Edgecombe County Commissioner Evelyn Powell. Powell was not home at the time, but her husband was. He heard about the tornado on the news and managed to get inside, shut the door and move to safety…