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Tornado bounces through Cheektowaga
By John J. Hopkins
A tornado touched down in Cheektowaga Friday afternoon, ripping roofs off businesses and homes, overturning tractor trailers, uprooting trees and causing massive traffic delays along some of the town's busiest corridors.
No one was killed, but two persons were injured, including the operator of a tractor trailer that was lifted by the cyclone, and a man who sought refuge in a construction trailer.
The twister developed during a severe thunderstorm and first touched ground around 3 p.m. along Walden Avenue. The tornado bounced off the ground several times on its three-mile long, 75-foot wide path, last making contact in the Parkside Village mobile home park, just west of Stiglmeier Park.
The National Weather Service's Buffalo Office estimated the tornado's winds between 100-110 miles per hour, placing the storm at F1 on the Fujita scale, which measures the strength of tornados on a scale of 0 (weak) to 5 (incredibly violent).
"We're very fortunate that no one was killed," said Cheektowaga Police Captain John Glascott. "There was some damage, but things could have been much worse."
 | | TWISTER'S BEGINNING AND END...The first tornado to strike Cheektowaga in almost 19 years bounced off the ground several times during its 10-minute journey. It first struck near Walden Avenue, tearing apart a roof, flinging a trailer and downing a tree. At left, the trunk of a tree indicates the cyclone's counterclockwise rotation. Center, the storm blew out the windows at the former Petrocy jewelry store. Right, the tornado ripped the roof off two homes in the Parkside Village mobile home park. (Times photos at left and center; right photo courtesy of Bob Hamilton, National Weather Service) |
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On its first touchdown, the twister lifted a construction trailer from a work site and moved it roughly 4050 feet into the eastbound lanes of Walden Avenue near Peppy Place. A portable toilet at the site was knocked on its side.
A worker in the trailer was trapped inside and was freed by Rescue firefighters.
The storm also ripped part of the roof off a building housing a Subway restaurant and a Good Feet shoe store, and nearly overturned a vehicle in the plaza's parking lot.
"It looks like the roof had actually lifted up and came back down," said Rescue Fire Chief Richard Chojnacki. "I imagine a little more and it would have taken it right off."
Managing Building and Plumbing Inspector Tom Adamczak said that an engineer or architect will have to examine the roof. He added that the building is uninhabitable until repairs are made.
"The upper row of blocks is broken and out of place," Adamczak said. "From the inside you can actually see a gap between the roof and the wall."
The twister shattered the plate glass windows at the former Petrocy Jeweler store, located on Dale Road at Peppy Place. Glass from the windows flew in several directions, including toward Rob Walker's home next door on Dale. Part of Walker's fence was also damaged.
"It was 'Kaboom! And there was glass everywhere," Walker said. "The glass blew through our home. It's everywhere. I'll be cleaning glass for five days."
Walker's son, Justin, was sitting in the front room with a friend when they saw the twister.
"We saw it swirling over the movie theater," Justin Walker said.
Some of the glass from Petrocy's blew out the rear window of a minivan owned by Todd Hayhurst, store manager for Orville's Home Appliances, located next door to Good Feet.
"The front store windows began rattling and you could hear a whistling sound," Hayhurst said. "The windows started pressing in, and my ears actually popped."
Several trees were snapped in two or uprooted as the tornado continued its journey in a generally eastern direction before turning southeast.
A tractor trailer traveling in the center westbound lane of the New York State Thruway was lifted by the twister and sent flying into the jersey concrete barrier near the Broadway overpass, disrupting travel in both directions.
The driver of the truck, Adrian Roman of Michigan, suffered a broken leg. He was treated at the scene by Doyle firefighters.
Another trailer, parked at a DHL warehouse on Duke Road, was pushed into the structure. A 20-foot by 30-foot section of the building's roof- covering an unoccupied section- was torn off by the storm.
Cooper Industries, located on Broadway, incurred damage to the east side of the building, where a large side panel was torn off.
A building and several trees were damaged at the Ukranian Center on Como Park Boulevard, and the neighboring Banquets by Adam's incurred minor damage. Broken tree limbs were scattered across the lawns and parking lots at these locations.
"I was watching out the window because it was quite interesting as the storm was getting worse," said Wilhelmina Pilarz of Banquets by Adam's. "Then I heard the train sound, which means that a tornado is coming. We ran away from the windows."
Pilarz said that the weather got "nasty," with dirt and sand blowing around to accompany an already dark, angry sky.
The tornado lasted about 20 seconds around Adam's. When it was safe, Pilarz surveyed the damage: a tree blocked the front entrance, two signs were knocked down as were some gutters.
Because the restaurant was hosting a banquet that night, Adam's quickly summoned construction workers to cut and remove the tree, allowing them to open on time.
"We've been cleaning up for three days," Pilarz added. "But there was no damage inside the building; we didn't lose business, electricity or telephone service."
The storm's last encounter with the ground, at Parkside Village, damaged 11 homes.
"There was pretty severe damage to a couple of roofs," said Captain Glascott. "Gutters were taken down and various car ports sustained structural damage. But nobody was hurt."
Fortunately, most businesses and homes were spared by the tornado. Walden Galleria sits less than a mile from where the twister touched down; Thruway Plaza just a few hundred feet.
Judith Levan of the National Weather Service said that heavier structural damage could have bumped the tornado's ranking to F2.
"We were fortunate that most of the tornado path was over open areas," Levan said. "We would have seen much more damage had that occurred over more of a residential area."
After the storm passed, sirens could be heard piercing the air in Cheektowaga virtually nonstop for about 45 minutes. Less than one hour after the storm hit, the sun popped out from behind the clouds.
Eastbound traffic along Walden was shut down between Harlem and Anderson roads, while westbound traffic was limited to one lane.
The tornado also created traffic tie-ups along Harlem Road, Union Road and Broadway. Drivers attempting to avoid Walden tied up the Thruway Plaza parking lots and access roads.
"It was mostly the HarlemWalden area," said Glascott. "But things slowly spread back from there. In this case, we had a Friday afternoon around rush hour."
Traffic in both directions of the New York State Thruway was backed up for several miles as crews struggled to remove the trailer from the barrier. The Thruway Authority reported at 9:21 p.m. through e-mail that all lanes were reopened.
One driver, traveling home to West Seneca from Syracuse told the Times that westbound traffic on the Thruway was backed up to the Williamsville toll barriers.
Town Emergency Services Coordinator Earl Loder said that there wasn't enough damage to declare a state of emergency.
Loder said that individual businesses and homeowners will fill out their own reports. He said that everything should be documented, including photos and receipts.
Because residents and businesses are ineligible to apply for federal relief, no damage estimate is readily available.
The tornado struck exactly one month shy of the 19th anniversary of the last tornado to rip through Cheektowaga. A July 30, 1987 twister caused roughly $1.6 million in damages and struck approximately 140 homes and businesses in the George Urban Boulevard area.
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