The National Weather Service confirmed Friday that a tornado with wind gusts of 105 mph and higher hit an eastern Pennsylvania elementary school.
The National Weather Service confirmed Friday that a tornado with wind gusts of 105 mph and higher hit an eastern Pennsylvania elementary school, ripping off the roof and ravaging classrooms.
Strong winds and heavy rains hit the Blue Mountain Adventist Elementary School in Hamburg just before 7 p.m. Thursday. The storm turned the roof into a pile of twisted metal and destroyed part of the building.
Preliminary Public Information Statement on Berks County Tornado. #pawx http://t.co/CMnjETahf1
-- NWS Mount Holly (@NWS_MountHolly) July 10, 2015
A piece of the roof ended up in 75-foot pine trees hundreds of yards away.
The school's principal, Rachel Wardecke, was the only person in the building at the time.
The storm tore a hole in the roof and covered Wardecke with ceiling tile, forcing her to crawl from the building, she told the Reading Eagle.
"If I had been in my classroom, which was on the side of the building that was in the path of the tornado. I don't think I would be alive," Wardecke told the newspaper.
She said the 46-year-old school will open again in the fall.
"We are people of faith, and we have busy angels working for us," Wardecke said.
The storm also knocked down trees and wires, damaged homes and left many without power.
Two other tornadoes were spawned by Thursday's severe storms in Pennsylvania, the weather service said.
This was over Hamburg area at that time - bookend vortex with rotating head... BV radar supported strong rotation pic.twitter.com/mJKnfKWCN7
-- EPAWx Authority (@epawawx) July 10, 2015
Compare to radar at that time... cyclonic rotation in the northern bookend of the bow echo/squall line. pic.twitter.com/sPQA6vNEsz
-- EPAWx Authority (@epawawx) July 10, 2015
A tornado with winds of 86 to 110 mph touched down Thursday near Montoursville, and a twister with winds of 65 to 85 mph touched down in Selinsgrove, both in central Pennsylvania.
The tornado near Montoursville snapped and uprooted trees and caused damage to outbuildings. The Selinsgrove twister tracked along a creek and caused damage to trees and crops before lifting when it reached the Susquehanna River.
It's been an active few weeks of severe weather in Pennsylvania.
A tornado with winds of up to 95 mph hit a rural southeastern Pennsylvania community June 30, causing some property damage but no injuries.
A twister with winds of 60 to 70 mph traveled for a mile and a half near Pittsburgh on June 27. Nobody was hurt, but lawn chairs and other decorations were tossed into neighbors' yards and some into trees.