3 tornadoes suspected in Midlands storm damage, weather service says

Crews from the National Weather Service on Monday will assess whether tornadoes caused the damage seen in three Midlands counties after a line of powerful storms swept through the area Sunday night.

Survey crews will visit Richland, Lexington and Edgefield counties and survey the damage left after Sunday’s storms, according to Al Moore, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Columbia.

“Generally we have a full check of damage in the area where a tornado may have touched down,” Moore told The State. “We go out and check for various types of damage to help confirm the touchdown of a tornado.”

The weather service received reports of trees down on cars on Lincoln Street near downtown Columbia, Moore said. Columbia police posted a picture to Twitter of a large tree that was uprooted and fell onto a home on the 1100 block of Price Street. No injuries were reported.

In Lexington County, winds toppled a column at Red Bank Baptist Church and damaged another column, Moore said. Elsewhere in Lexington County, the weather service has received reports of trees down on homes in the Red Bank area, a tree that fell through a home and recreational vehicles toppled over at a dealership on Glassmaster Road near Interstate 20.

The winds knocked over gas pumps and damaged the awning at a gas station in Edgefield County, Moore said. Seven people were injured at the gas station, including at least one in a car accident caused by the storm, reports WRDW. Details about the injuries were not immediately available.

Peak winds on Sunday reached 31.6 mph at Martin Luther King Jr. Park near Five Points and 29.2 mph at the Lexington County administration building, according to Richland County weather data.

A rain gauge at Columbia Metropolitan Airport measured just under nine-tenths of an inch of rainfall Sunday, Moore said. A gauge near Five Points measured 1.36 inches.

At Red Bank Baptist on Monday, pieces of the roof were strewn about the yard and one piece was hanging from a power line yards away. A few headstones in the church’s cemetery were overturned.

For an hour or so Sunday night, the 150 people at the church for worship service knelt in the hallway while the power was out. Some people prayed while upset children cried, Pastor Jeff Wright said.

At one point, Wright went to his office to see through his window how the church was doing. He said he saw a family of four running toward his office from the front of the church.

They had been walking on foot from somewhere nearby and had been knocking aggressively at the front door of the church when the column flew off, Wright said. He let them in the side door to his office.

“We can replace property, but we can’t replace people,” he said.

Reporter Isabella Cueto contributed.

This story was originally published March 4, 2019 at 7:50 AM.