Tornado Terror for Wayne County

Wayne County got a dose of Triple Twisters.

The region rebounded Monday from Mother Nature’s wrath this weekend when three tornadoes touched down in Wayne County and Northeastern Pennsylvania.

Beach Lake got blistered by a tornado, just one of three that The National Weather Service confirmed landed in Wayne County near Honesdale before carving a path of destruction through Woodloch Pines and toward Pike County.

“Tornadoes are fairly rare around here, a common event maybe once every 10 years,” said Mitch Gilt, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Binghamton, N.Y. “We issued a few warnings recently. We look at the atmosphere and it was conducive to activity. The only thing people can do is listen for the warnings, see if they are in harm’s way and take appropriate action.”

The National Weather Service confirmed that at least three tornadoes ripped through the region Friday night, toppling trees and damaging some buildings as well as cutting power to thousands of residents.

Forecasters said Sunday an EF-2 tornado with wind speeds up to 115 to 125 mph touched down near Honesdale and traveled into Pike County.

A smaller EF-1 tornado was confirmed touching down in Susquehanna County and heading near Pleasant Mount. Another EF-1 was active near Hawley and Lackawaxen in Pike County.

No injuries were reported.

According to tornado reports filed by the weather service, the first tornado touched down 5 miles southeast of Honesdale, damaging numerous trees, destroying a home and heading down a 12-mile path 2 miles south of Lackawaxen.

The second one was reported 3 miles northwest of Bethany.

It carved a 15-mile path, causing major damage in the Beach Lake area to four structures, minor damage to 40 more structures and destroyed a significant amount of trees, the weather service report stated.

One tornado targeted P & L Transmissions in Beach Lake, where several buildings and trees were destroyed.

The third tornado touched down in Union Dale, destroying a trailer and numerous trees and damaging a barn in its 7-mile path. The damage took place along Route 171 between Stillwater Lake and Union Dale.

“We saw a lot of bad damage and had a lot of close calls with trees down on each side of homes in some places,” said Commissioners Chairman Brian Smith, who surveyed the damage over the weekend. “We are very fortunate and blessed that nobody got hurt. I’ve never seen anything like it in all of my time here.”

PPL spokeswoman Martha Herron said about 4,300 customers lost power. Most of those outages were restored as PPL crews worked tirelessly throughout the region to get power back on track.

A spokesperson for PPL said crews working around the clock since about 5:30 p.m. Friday, some working 16 hour shifts trying to deal with at least 26,000 homes and businesses that were affected by the storms. PPL Electric was still reporting that at least 19 customers were without power Monday in Lackawanna County due to storms there.

The tornado activity began Friday night after a storm hit Honesdale and the region Friday night.

The storm whipped through Honesdale, bringing severe thunder and lightning, flash flooding Friday evening and a tornado watch for the region.

People who were participating in the Sidewalk Sales event in downtown Honesdale scattered right before the storm hit. In a 20-minute bombardment, the storm flooded roads around 8th Street, where The Wayne Independent is located, and on Main Street, where cars drove through pockets full of flooding. Tents from the Sidewalk Sales were knocked over and limbs from trees were knocked off.

These tornadoes are rare for Wayne County, forecasters said.

Since 1950, the National Weather Service has only recorded three tornadoes in Wayne County: an F2 tornado that tracked 4 miles at 8:30 p.m. on Sept. 18, 1991; one that was up to 70 mph in 1998 and the most recent, an F1 tornado on May 31, 2002 that was a mile long and had winds reaching up to 100 mph.