The tornado there tore the roof and an addition off one house, where the residents escaped injury by huddling in a basement, neighbors said. The twister, fast and fickle, ripped up trees and wrenched off siding and walls on some houses, residents said, while leaving others unscathed.
"I live down the street. We were cooking dinner and didn't hear anything. We didn't know about it until a neighbor called to ask if we were all right," Maggie Taylor said.
Twin tornados hover near Remington in Fauquier County, where about 25 houses were severely damaged in storms that raked the region.
(Rich Condit For The Washington Post)
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| __ What to Do __ • If a tornado watch is issued, it means that a tornado is possible.
• If a tornado warning is issued, it means that a tornado has actually been spotted, or is strongly indicated on radar and it is time to go to a safe shelter immediately.
• Indoors: Avoid windows. Go to the lowest floor: a basement or small center room (like a bathroom or closet). Crouch as low as possible to the floor, facing down. Cover your head with your hands. Cover yourself with some sort of thick padding (mattress, blankets) to protect against falling debris.
• In a car or truck: Vehicles are extremely dangerous in a tornado. Park the vehicle, get out and seek shelter in a sturdy building. Avoid seeking shelter under bridges, which offer little protection against flying debris.
• Outdoors: Lie flat and face-down on low ground, protecting the back of your head with your arms. Get as far away from trees and cars as you can; they may be blown onto you.
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Metro Area Under Flood Watch: Meteorologist Andy Woodcock at the National Weather Service describes how the remnants of Hurricane Ivan are affecting the local weather.
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In Fauquier, at least 25 houses in the Meadows subdivision off Lucky Hill Road were severely damaged. Multiple tornadoes also were seen in Warrenton and Bealeton. No injuries were reported by late yesterday.
Michael Troiano, who owns Andy's Grocery on Route 29 near Main Street in Remington, said he was standing behind his store when the first tornado came through. "A big funnel cloud touched down like an explosion," he said. "A bunch of debris, plyboard and boards, went way up in the air."
When it was safe, he surveyed the neighborhood. "A couple of houses were cut in half," he said. "It just blew them apart."
About 80 families sought shelter at Remington Elementary School. One couple, Dan St. Peter, 48, and his wife, New, 36, were in their house when the tornado hit. "We saw the funnel form, debris flying," Dan St. Peter said. They huddled on the second floor of the two-story home with their collie mix as the roof was torn off.
" 'Whoo, there it goes.' We could look up and see the clouds," Dan St. Peter said. Attic insulation fell around them like snow. The top half of the house was gone, the frame smashed, and their roof was in a field a half-mile away. Among their lost items were their wedding pictures.
Of the 35 homes that were struck by a suspected tornado in Manassas, 12 of them sustained major damage, and at least five were condemned, the Associated Press reported.
In Maryland, the tornadoes seemed to hit more remote areas. Todd Webber was driving home to Frederick County when he saw a funnel cloud on the horizon. The storm had hit an area through Brunswick, wiping out a few houses and four barns, he said. The storm picked up a grain truck for sale at a farm along Route 17 and tossed it upside down back into the cornfields, he said.
"I saw the tornado touch down across the field," said Cpl. Gary Cline of the Frederick County Sheriff's Office. "I saw it pick up the truck. It whipped it back across the field.
"It was kind of eerie," he said. The tornado looked like "a solid black mass. It just tore up everything" in its path.
In nearby Knoxville, Amber Hagan was working at a Sheetz convenience store on Burkittsville Road when someone ran in screaming that a tornado was coming. "Everyone started running into the store," said Hagan, 18. "We were trying to get them in the office, the bathrooms, the cooler. Some people couldn't get in -- the door shut. The wind blew it shut."
Hagan, who lives in Brunswick, saw a funnel cloud come through. "It was so dark. It took up the whole sky. It was humongous."
She heard wind howling and the walls of the office shook, and then she heard a snap -- that was the sheet-metal roof of a nearby barn ripping through the parking lot. "It went flying through, hit the side of our building, smashed the back end of a car in our parking lot."
The town of Hamilton, west of Leesburg, was a tangle of fallen trees and power lines after the storm -- on cars, on houses, across roads. Steve Wence, who lives on Harmony Church Road, said that just before the storm hit, "it got real still. Then the wind started again and the lightning and thunder, and it sounded the way everybody says it sounds: like a freight train." He and his wife and daughter took refuge in the basement -- but not before his daughter saw the wind lift their trampoline off the ground.
At Dulles International Airport, workers were briefly evacuated from the air traffic control tower shortly after 6 p.m. when a funnel cloud was spotted approaching the airport, said Jonathan Gaffney, spokesman for the Washington Metropolitan Airports Authority.
Gaffney said people inside the terminal were told to move away from the large glass windows, and flights were grounded until about 6:45 p.m. One pilot awaiting takeoff at a gate evacuated passengers as a precaution, he said.
A spokesman for Dominion Virginia Power said more than 13,000 customers across Northern Virginia lost power when the high winds and heavy ran swept through.
April Rollins, 38, and her three children and two dogs also ran for the basement of their Hamilton home. "I don't know what we're going to do for dinner," she said in her darkened house on East Colonial Highway, "but we're making memories."
Staff writers Maria Glod, Sarah Park, Tamara Jones, Angela Watts, Thomas G. Wilkinson, Tim Craig, Joshua Partlow, Susan Kinzie, Rebecca Dana and Steven Ginsberg and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
