“We pulled in and it was like a war zone,” said 9-year-old Michael Montambault of Berlin Township.
Friday’s tornado cut a path across their yard on Dunn Road, felling some 15 trees, before continuing on its destructive journey.
“We got a phone call from my neighbor saying, ‘Come to our house because you’re not going to be able to get into your driveway,’” said his mom, Michelle. Their house sits about a mile in from Route 652.
Parking their car at the neighbors, they used flashlights to guide them to their front door, having to jump over a fallen tree to get there.
“I’m overwhelmed right now,” Michelle said Monday morning, looking out over her yard, where another huge tree sagged against another, its weight threatening to do more damage.
“I’m glad we weren’t home when this happened. I would have been hysterical to see trees falling like this,” she said. She’s grateful their house was spared.
“I realize this looks bad, but it could have been way worse ...It’s a lot of work ahead, but we’ll get through it one day at a time,” she said.
Her neighbors Tom Miszler and Barry Zeglen showed up 6 a.m. Saturday morning, chainsaws in hand to help her husband, David, deal with the mess.
Watching the warnings unfold on TV, Barry’s family was in Elk Lake.
Returning home Friday night, and finding they still had electricity, they figured things hadn’t been that bad. Until they saw their backyard and all the uprooted Maples, among them a stately tree well over 100 years old. “It’s things we’ll never see back in our lifetime,” he said. “You can’t replace them.”
As tornado warnings flashed across the TV screen Saturday for Susquehanna and Bradford counties, Barry says his 9-year-old daughter was so scared that she asked if they could all stay up until the danger had passed.
A mile up the road, Les Rosencrantz, owner of Les S. Rosencrantz, Inc., was busy trying to shore up his main building, after the roof was pealed off during Friday’s storm. It’ll take a few days to fashion a new roof, he said.
‘When it comes to Mother Nature, you don’t dictate to her. You just bend to her requests, no matter what they are. Good or bad,” Les said.
Ryan Zuber, who works for Rosencrantz, says the tornado picked up their 3-ton garage and tossed it into a 5-ton tractor trailer, pushing the rig back a good foot.
The 20 X 15-foot garage housed hay, engine parts, etc. “Two (garage) walls survived,” Ryan said.
“The rest is just splinters,” said worker John Blair.
Mapping the tornado’s track, Ryan said it seemed to follow Dunn Road, struck their construction business, missed the Honesdale Seventh Day Adventist Church, before leaping across the roadway where it dealt a destructive blow to P & L Transmissions.
P & L Transmissions has been in Pete Lazzeri’s family some 35 years, started by his dad, Pete Lazzeri, Sr.
Both of his garages sustained damage, one completely leveled, while the other’s roof was “peeled like a tin can.”
“I went home 20 minutes before the storm actually hit our business. I received a phone call from a friend who was driving by, asked if we were okay. I’m like: What are you talking about? He said, ‘Are you in the garage? You better get back to the garage you just got hit by a storm,’” Pete said.
Two outbuildings belonging to his dad also sustained roof damage.
“We’re pretty lucky, actually. It didn’t hit my parents’ house, because that would have been bad. They were home,” he said.
“A 50-foot pine tree got ripped out of the ground on the front side of his (dad’s) house and 25-feet on the back of the house is where the debris trail went for my garage,” Peter said. “It’s just amazing ...Everything around his house is ripped apart ...I said, ‘You guys are the luckiest people on the face of the earth at this moment.’ This is a miracle.”
When it comes to the family business, Pete said, “I figure we’re going to be down for a week; we’ve got to get a roof on (the garage). But, we’re not going to be down long-term,” he said. “We’re going to take care of anything we’ve already been working on. We’re going to finish stuff up that we started that we didn’t get finished throughout the storm.”
Pete said they’ve been flooded with phone calls and people stopping by to offer whatever help they can, even the use of garages until the Lazzeris are able to restore their own.
“It was very heartwarming and pleasing to have people come around and show that kind of support,” Pete said.
Honesdale —
