NITRO, W.Va. — It will take a full investigation by the National Weather Service to determine if the strong winds which accompanied an intense thunderstorm in Nitro Wednesday were actually a tornado. However, Amanda Cadle of Nitro saw them first hand and the destruction and won’t need much convincing.
“I had workers outside in it and I told them to come inside. I came up in the office to lay down some papers and looked out the window.” Cadle told MetroNews. “You could see the wind and the rain swirling.”
Although Cadle and her co-workers had heard the warnings, there was nothing in the air to indicate anything of that strength was headed their way.
“Out of nowhere, it just started pouring the rain and the wind kicked up really bad,” she said. “It started blowing debris everywhere.”
Cadle watched a power pole bend and the tower holding up the sign for a neighboring business snapped and send the sign crashing to the ground. Vehicles in the gravel parking lot were also damaged when the storm picked up gravels from the ground and sent them rifling through the air.
“Eleven employee vehicles were damaged in our gravel parking lot,” she said. “It busted their windows, their vehicles are full of gravel, and some of the paint looks like it was sand blasted.”