Destructive EF2 tornado confirmed in Midlands after storms swept the area
A tornado was indeed responsible for the severe damage in the small town of Bamberg’s downtown, the National Weather Service confirmed Wednesday.
A tornado with a rating of EF2 and wind speeds of around 125 miles per hour touched down in Bamberg on Tuesday, collapsing one old building and causing significant damage to other buildings on Main Highway that runs through the town.
The National Weather Service also reported a tornado with maximum wind speeds of 90 mph, categorized as an EF-1, touched down in Chapin near Lake Murray. The agency was also investigating a tornado in Lancaster County, but the service had not made a determination on that site at the time of publication.
The TV station WRDW has shared video footage of the moment a building collapsed into the street in Bamberg, a small town in a largely rural county about an hour south of Columbia.
After the tornado hit Bamberg, images of the damage began circulating on social media.
“Well , we just had a tornado touch down right beside our headquarters in Bamberg!” the Edisto Electric Cooperative wrote on Facebook.
Brittany Glover with the South Carolina Highway Patrol posted several photos of damage in Bamberg County on the site X, formerly Twitter.
On Wednesday, the South Carolina Emergency Management Department was also in Bamberg surveying the damage. The agency shared more photos of the destruction on social media.
This story was originally published January 10, 2024 at 3:21 PM.
