VALLEY VIEW, Pa. — The National Weather Service confirms it was a tornado spotted in Valley View before 1 p.m. Wednesday. Kortnee Wagner shot video showing a white funnel cloud packing 65 mile-per-hour winds moving quickly across the fields. NWS reports the twister touched down for 75 yards.
David Peterson was at his home along Main Street when the storm moved in.
'Well, it was calm, kind of like this, and all of a sudden everything was blowing through the air," Peterson said. "Dumpsters and trees and everything. In fact, it blew something off my barn, some roofing off my barn in the backyard."
The winds broke a large branch off of the tree in his side yard. It landed in the middle of the road. He came outside a short time later to find debris everywhere.
"It only lasted about 30 seconds right here. That was it," Peterson said. "Then I got the mess."
Rich Barry showed Newswatch 16 the damage to his son's home across the street.
"Ripped the porch posts off on the side porch, and it ripped the flashing up in the corner that comes down to the other roof," he said.
The storm lifted a glass table behind another home and sent it flying into a neighbors car, shattering on the driveway. We found a chair from that table two-tenths of a mile away, according to GPS.
When he looked up at the barn behind his son's home, Barry said he was astonished.
"I walked around to the other side of the building yesterday, and I thought, 'holy crap look at that, the chimneys laying down,'" he recalled.
Roofers were hard at work making repairs to the barn after pieces of the metal roof were sent hundreds of yards into the orchard off Church Road.
The apple trees here in the Orchard were planted in perfectly formed straight rows, but the tornado has now carved another path right through them. It ripped dozens of trees from their roots and knocked thousands of apples to the ground that will now go to waste.
"All these apple trees," Barry said. "Down through, it's just leveled.
Barry said he's never seen anything like it.
"Can't fool with mother nature," he said. "Nope. Can't fool with mother nature."
While cleanup continues, residents tell Newswatch 16 they're grateful no one was hurt in the powerful storm.