Tag Archive for: #severeweatherhendersonvancearea

Hermine Update (Friday Morning)

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Hermine Update (Friday Morning) from the National Weather Service and Vance County Emergency Management Director Brian Short

Late Morning Update:

The director of Vance County Emergency Management, Brian Short, provided an additional email to the one listed below to local emergency preparedness teams, and he said, “Attached is some additional information from North Carolina Emergency Management that is a bit more detailed than what I forwarded out earlier today. Essentially nothing has changed, but have a look in particular to the slide that shows the expected rainfall totals.”  (Click here to view this full update and Tropical Weather Outlook.)

Early Morning Update:

The director of Vance County Emergency Management, Brian Short, said in an email to local emergency preparedness teams this morning by email, “Please see the latest informational briefing from the NWS regarding Tropical Storm Hermine. As you can see, not much has changed from the previous briefing for our area.”

(Click here to view the full briefing)

Short’s email continued, “Officially, we are forecast to receive 2 to 6 inches of rain (though I believe realistically 2 to 3 inches is more likely) with wind gusts of around 30 MPH.

“Our biggest threat we believe will be localized flash flooding particularly in areas that are historically known to flood and possibly a few downed trees. Widespread power outages are not expected, however a few isolated outages may occur.

“At this point we do not believe that we need to convene our Advisory Group or have any sort of formal briefing session, however we will continue to keep everyone informed as the situation matures.

“Our office will remain poised to implement additional emergency protection if it should become necessary.”

4 Confirmed Tornado Touchdowns in Vance County

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Director of Emergency Management for Henderson and Vance County told WIZS News, “We have at least four confirmed tornado touchdowns in Vance County.”

He said he thought it was all from the same tornado. “The weather service will have to confirm that from doppler imaging. They are also technically going to have to confirm that it’s tornadic damage, but I’ve seen enough to know that it is.”

Short said the weather service would be coming in tomorrow or the next day to make that determination.

There are no known deaths or injuries to report in Vance County.

Short said the four touchdowns caused significant damage. He said there were a few isolated power outages “in the Hicksboro, Williamsboro area, which is where most of the damage is.”

There are no roads closed at this time. Emergency crews cleared several downed trees really quickly, according to Short.

Based on our own observations at WIZS, these tornado touchdowns north of Henderson would have occurred right around 5:00 P.M. Wednesday. Additionally, there is an amateur video clip that has been shown several times on WTVD-TV that is supposedly of a tornado just north of Henderson, and if so, this would be in line with what Short is reporting. This stems from the first of three tornado warnings issued for Vance County on Wednesday.

The second and third tornado warnings for Vance County involved mostly areas south and east of the City of Henderson, down towards Bearpond, Kittrell and east towards Cokesbury. When asked if anything materialized from the warnings for the southern part of Vance County, Short said, “Not that I know of, but we had multiple people going in multiple directions, and I have not talked to all of them yet.”

In neighboring Granville County, near Huntsboro, which is not far from the Henderson-Oxford Airport, multiple structures were damaged.  One house was completely destroyed, while adjacent houses received heavy damage.  A local dairy farmer sustained heavy property damage, including two silos as well as equipment and other structure damage.  WIZS News spoke directly with a person on the scene in Huntsboro.  He reported the dairy farmer had not lost any of his cows and that he was observing the aftermath of the storm firsthand while speaking with us.