ry per ay & Dallas Post/Ed Campbell one was seriously injured. Damages FR (Contirined from page 1) John Burns, another resident of Annabelle Ave., was one of several eyewitnesses, claiming he actually saw the.twister approach. “I saw something like a funnel cloud coming over the hill,” he exclaimed, pointing toward the mountain. A gaping hole in the trees on the mountain became the focal point of the tornado’s entrance to Harveys® Lake as weekend specta- tors often gazed toward the moun- tain, learning the origin of the destrugfive storm. “Things were blowing all aroundy2-said Burns. “The rain was (coming down) in sheets, and it was hailing=<Fhe hail stones were bigger than gelfzballs.” Burfi§islawn furniture, which is solid weod and metal and weighed approximately 20 to 25 pounds, was tossed “about in his back yard like toys. .A”metal shed, also owned by Burn§ZWas lifted, crushed, and landed~about 10 feet from its origi- nal resting place. Thomds K. Hastings of Ridge Street-has lived in the Sunset area for the past 17 years and claims he could never see the lake from his home because of all the trees. “Now I can-(see the lake),” hee said. “There: must have been at least 30 trees taken down around my home alone. “It’s got to be the worst thing I’ve ever seen around here,” he contin- ued. “But I'll tell you one thing, I give .a..lot of credit to all the volunteers and- workers who have been “lrere all night and all day cleaning up. They’ve been fantas- tie. One “lake business that suffered major-damage was Hoss’ Garden Hut. Jeif Hosle, owner of the hut, estimated damages to his business and preperty to be around $15,000 to $20,000... “Were out of business right now,’ said Hosle, ‘but we may be able fo-Gome back. It’s the peak of the seaStn right now, though.” Hosle«was inside the building when. .the storm hit and explained the experience. “Fipsteof all, I heard a loud noise. Next IBing I knew, things were blowing all over the place. Glass and debris were flying through the air. I just hid inside until the noise stopped. When I looked outside, I saw that the wood shed behind my building had blown 20 feet on to three cars and my boat. It was a mess, but yet we've very lucky.” Another twister, or perhaps the same one, touched down earlier in the area of Harris Pond in Sweet Valley. According to Robert Walsh, Fire Chief for the Sweet Valley Volunteer Fire Company, cost estimates of the damage in Ross Township was approximately $250,000. “We had about 16 homes that were damaged,” said Walsh. “One was totally destroyed, and another was partially destroyed.” A home in the Sweet Valley area owned by Bob and Marietta Bach- man suffered the most extensive damage as the roof and most of one side of the house blew away and scattered themselves in a nearby field owned by the Don Honeywell Farms. The Bachmans, who were visiting Mrs. Bachman’s mother in the hospital at the time of the storm, returned home to find sev- eral inches of rain in their home. The most serious injury from the storm occurred near Harris Pond when a car containing three people was literally picked up, twisted around and dumped, upside down, in Harris Pond. Eight-year-old Joseph Matysik of Hunlock Creek was the most seriously injured in the incident and, after spending two days at Nesbitt Memorial Hospital in Kingston, was transferred to Chil- dren’s Hospital in Philadelphia on Sunday. Other area residents who weren’t affected directly by the twisters were still victims of the storm. Because of lightning strikes and wind damage, thousands of UGI customers were left without power throughout the night. According to Richard Gill, spokes- man for UGI, the major power outages were: Lower Demunds due to lightning; Orange, Country Club Road and Demunds, from 6:30 = Frwmbe I Shop— “WORLD TRAVELER COLLECTION nA ER + \ oa LAS G2 a smal § 9 W. Northampton St., Wilkes-Barre 10-5 Daily ~~ 825-2024 “BRIDAL & FORMAL WEAR __Thank you for the overwhelming response to our “Grand Opening. Now introducing our collection “for fall and winter weddings. Nad We have for the: {+ o BRIDAL PARTY:Tremendous selec- tion of gowns; from iridescent taf- f8tas, satins to graceful chitfons in oth floor and tea lengths. "MOTHER OF THE BRIDE: we are paying special attention to mothers and grandmothers of the bride & groom with sizes ranging from 6 to 26%. Beautiful suits, laces, cocktail «fengths and long dresses for these special guests. o FORMAL WEAR: After- vy Six, Bill Blass, Pierre Cardin : “tuxedos to complement the feminine finery. -o_ ACCESSORIES: The latest in millinery, hosiery \ and gloves. Thank you, Martha (Jane) Barbacct BRIDAL AND MARTHA’ S paonam, R.D. 5, Rt. 415, Dallas Mem. Hwy. (32m ,~.. Open Monday-Saturday Call for Appointment 10 am. 08 p.m. 675-0182 A CRs Si ) Charge For Alterations p.m. to 11:07 p.m., due to lightning; Idetown, CarpenterRoad, and Point Breeze, from 7 p.m. to 2:15 a.m., due to wind damage; North Lake, from 6:15 p.m. to 9 p.m., due to wind damage and Sullivan Lake, from 6:15 p.m. to 2:10 a.m. due to lightning. Other areas were out longer because of problems with individual transformers. Opinions differ 'By DOTTY MARTIN Associate Editor Tom Clark, meteorologist for WNEP-TV Channel 16, ‘reported Friday night that the entire state of Pennsyl- vania doesn’t see more than two or three tornadoes a year and the Wilkes-Barre-Scranton area doesn’t usually experience more than one tornado every two or three years. For those of us who have resided in this area all of our lives and who are rapidly completing our third decade of existence, tornadoes are a characteristic of other areas, not ours. Because of our unfamiliarity with tornadoes and their ways of acting, opinions seem to differ as to what should be done in the event of one. Unlike floods, such as the Agnes Flood which devastated the Wyoming Valley area back in 1972, tornadoes leave very little or no time at all for preparation. Clark, who reported that 87 percent of all tornadoes travel from the southwest direction to the northeast direction (Sweet Valley is in the southwest with Harveys Lake to its northeast), explained that torna- does are caused by a difference in air pressure. According to Clark, the air pressure inside the funnel of a tornado is very low while the air pressure outside the funnel is high, creating an ‘explosion’ effect. The television meteorologist explained that when windows in a home are open, it eliminates the difference in air pressure inside and outside the funnel, allowing the tornado a means of escape. Jim Drury, of Annabelle Avenue at Harveys Lake, whose home was damaged by Friday's tornado, doesn’t agree with Clark and Keith Delong of Sweet Valley said a home on his street in North Lake contradicts Clark’s advice. “I was trying to close my diningroom window,” Drury said. The interior of the Drury home suffered minor damage as leaves from trees, along with flying debris, parked themselves inside his home. “There are other houses around here whose windows were all shut,” he said, pointing to the undamaged fumes on his street. “And look, nothing happened to them.” Delong, who lives in the hardest hit area of Sweet Valley but whose home was untouched, echos Drury’s feelings and questions the meteorologist’s advice. “Those people down there are gone away,” he said, pointing to the house. “The house is all closed up and all the windows are shut. Nothing happened to it.” Ironically, that untouched house stands right next to one that saw friends and neighbors ripping off what was left of its garage Saturday morning. Mrs. Betty Gosart, of Sweet Valley, was unsure of what to do when the storm reached the area around her home. “I really didn’t realize what was going on. I-looked out my window and could see a tree that was bending over from the wind,” Mrs. Gosart said. “I was wondering just how much wind that tree could take. Mrs. Gosart laughingly admitted that everything she did was the wrong thing to do in a tornado. “I stood there in the middle of my living room wondering what I should do. I’ve been told now that during a tornado, you should open your windows, but I closed mine. Even worse, I went up into my attic to close some windows. If that roof had ever gone, I probably would have gone with it!”’ Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be a concrete answer as to what one should do in the event of a tornado. Possible the best thing to do now is hope it never happens again! Scary (Continued from page-1) room. The Drurys, who operate Drury’s Delicatessen on the other side of the highway from their home, were spared any damage to the business. Harold ‘‘Buzz’’ Taylor, proprietor of Dentiform at Sunset and whose 1978 Ford pickup truck was turned upside down by the violent winds, remembers holding his wife as tightly as possible. “The door to the building here blew open,” said Taylor, pointing to the door of his business which is located in the same building as Drury’s Delicatessen. ‘My wife got up to close it and it blew open again. Then, the whole building shook. I grabbed my wife, turned away from the door and held her as tight as I could.” After a few seconds, Taylor turned to look out the door, only to see the likes of things he had never seen before. “Everything was flying around,” he said. “Flying quickly and with- out direction. The sky was gray and black and it was raining hard...it was raining real hard. But, every- thing was flying around out there.” Taylor said he then heard a thump, but couldn’t be sure of what it was. When the dust settled, he found his truck parked neatly ouside his building - upside down. That same fear was abounding in Sweet Valley where the tornado started, leaving nothing standing in its path. Rita and Michael Brody, whose home on Lakeview Drive in the North Lake section of Sweet Valley, was undamaged, they said they heard the noise of the wind, but were unsure of what it was. Mr. Brody had just returned from pick- ing up pizza when the storm was at its worse. He explained that when the storm let up a bit, at least enough to see, he made a dash for the Bachman residence near his. That home, just three years old and owned by Mar- jetta and Bob Bachman, had been completely destroyed, as its roof and one end were blown into a nearby field of sunflowers owned by Don Honeywell. The Bachmans reportedly were visiting Mrs. Bachman’s mother in the hospital at the time of the storm and were called home by a relative who lives nearby. “I didn’t know if anyone was in there,” Brody said Saturday morn- ing, pointing to the Bachman resi- dence. So, I ran over there to see if they needed help. There was already an inch and a half of rain in that house when I got in there. I couldn’t believe it.” Keith and Chris Delong, also of Lakeview Drive, were among the fortunate ones, having suffered no damage other than the ruination of some children’s toys that were in their yard at the time of the storm. Mrs. Delong recalled on Saturday morning that she and her husband were hanging curtains when the tornado started its path of destruc- tion and were unsure of which direction it would take. Dallas Post/Ed Campbell She reflected on her feelings Sat- urday morning, likening Friday eve- ning’s events to one big nightmare. As she looked across the street from her home into the Honeywell field, she pointed to a 2x4 that had been planted straight up in the ground and from which was waving a piece “Look at that,” she said. “I wish somebody would take that down. It’s such an eery sight, almost as if the Indians were here and left that to remind us.” The board was part of the Backman home that had been blown all over the neighborhood and tornado’s destructive manner. “When my husband told me the roof had gone off the neighbor’s house, I couldn’t believe it,”’ Mrs. Delong added. “Oh, it was just awful. I don’t ever want to live was a constant reminder of the through anything like that again.” of insulation. Fn) ge FY Welcome The recent arrival of the newest member of your household is the perfect time to arrange for a WELCOME WAGON call. I'm your WELCOME WAGON representative and my basket is full of free gifts for the family. Plus lots of helpful information on the special world of babies. 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