FRANKLIN TOWNSHIP, Pa. -- An EF2 tornado ripped through parts of Bradford County Wednesday night, according to the National Weather Service.
About a dozen homes, a business, and a church near Troy were either heavily damaged or destroyed.
The tornado was on the ground for about five miles. No one was hurt but in some places the damage was extreme.
It was a quiet night inside Richard Gilliland's house near Troy, so he didn't think anything of it when he took his dogs outside around 8:15 p.m.
"Ferocious wind came and I actually had to lean over like this to get back into the house," Gilliland recalled.
"My son hollered, 'tornado watch!' and went to open the door to see what he could see. And it was here," said Laura Benjamin.
It was a tornado that came through Granville, Leroy and Franklin Townships.
According to Bradford County's public safety director, nearly a dozen homes were heavily damaged or destroyed.
Also gone are a former church and a lawnmower repair shop. One of the lawnmowers blew into a car about 100 yards away.
"We heard some really loud booms and we weren't sure what we were going to see when we came back up," Bonnie Colton said.
The loud booms could have been the lawnmower or a piece of lumber which blew into this house.
"Lost a camper, knocked my chimneys, pulled my chimneys right off the house like it was nothing."
Once Richard Gilliland and his wife knew they were safe, they went to check on their neighbor. They thought the people who lived there were home. Luckily their neighbors were safe somewhere else.
"We'll be cleaning up for days and days and days. That's OK, that's better than anybody getting hurt," Gilliland said.
The cleanup process started first thing Thursday morning. People from all over Bradford County and beyond have been coming around offering to help.