Valley records 2 tornadoes in same month

Little more than two weeks since a tornado damaged homes in Canfield and straight-line winds battered Boardman, another twister touched down in the Mahoning Valley.

On Tuesday evening, a tornado landed near the county line between Youngstown and Hubbard Township. Authorities have reported no injuries and an Ohio Edison crew was working Wednesday to fix a main line that left about 60 people in the immediate area without power.

The National Weather Service in Cleveland reported that the EF-0 tornado, slightly weaker than the EF-1 that struck Canfield Township on July 5, formed in Liberty Township at the northwest corner of Hubbard Road (U.S. Route 62) and Logan Gate Road. With sustained winds of up to 85 mph and a width of about 100 yards, the tornado stayed on the ground for about 16 minutes and covered 6.2 miles.

"It looked like a big, tall mountain of smoke," said Shajuan Bethea, who watched the twister go right through her front yard on Clingan Street in Youngstown. "I was taking a nap, I got the alert that woke me up, and I got phone calls."

Bethea said that, out of sheer curiosity, she stepped out onto the porch just to check the surroundings, and almost immediately had to turn back around and go inside and try to gather her two boys, George, 7, and J'Sean, 5, from the couch. But the storm was already there.

"It got very dark and that's when you saw stuff start to fly. So I went inside. I watched it through the window, it just happened so fast," she said. "Luckily, thank God, we're safe. It was all just petty items that can be replaced. Snatched items off the porch, out of the yard, and threw them, but we're fine."

Bethea said she watched the tornado take down a tree in her yard, right by the road. A neighbor across the street, she said, had at least three trees come down in her back yard.

Karen Clark of the NWS in Cleveland said tree damage is about all the storm caused.

"It did go through the McGuffey Heights neighborhood, and did a little damage to a roof or two and a trailer flipped over," she said.

The NWS summary states the tornado touched down just inside Liberty, then continued southeast along Applegate Road into Hubbard. It moved through a heavily wooded area as it crossed into Youngstown. Tree damage in McGuffey Heights was seen around Jacobs Road and Orrin Avenue, extending southeast onto Gerwig Avenue.

When it reached Coitsville-Hubbard Road -- state Route 616 -- and McGuffey Road, it caused more minor tree damage and flipped a wagon attached to a heavier trailer. It progressed to North Hubbard Road and Johnson Road, causing more tree damage and intensified again to 85 mph along Wilson Lane, where it snapped several large tree branches, damaging a house. The tornado then uprooted several trees along Oak Street before continuing southeast to the Ohio/Pennsylvania state line, north of U.S. Route 422.

Clark said the NWS office in Pittsburgh tracked its path and damage from that point.

Mahoning County Emergency Management Agency Director Conner O'Halloran said his team had little to do in the wake of the storm, but are keeping in touch with their counterpart in Trumbull County, and with Ohio Edison.

"They have a main distribution line that got damaged, but they're fixing that, and it should be done shortly, and everyone who is without power should be restored then," he said.

Both O'Halloran and Clark said that while tornados are not unheard of in the Valley, they are unusual in such close succession.

"I think it's fair to say it's uncommon, especially on different days, within two weeks or so of each other," Clark said. "It's more common to see small outbreaks on the same day. But it's not out of the question either."

O'Halloran said Mahoning County residents should be more concerned with other extreme wind trends.

"I try to stress this -- tornadoes are a thing, but they're rare for our area. Straight-line winds are very much more common and very dangerous," he said.

The macroburst that came through on July 5, adjacent to the tornado, brought straight-line winds at speeds of about 90 mph, spanning 10.25 miles and a width of 3.3 miles. The county continues to deal with the aftermath of that storm.

O'Halloran noted that while the winds are arguably as dangerous as small tornados, they do not meet the threshold required to activate the sirens.

But he also does not believe that is necessarily a problem.

"The emphasis on sirens being your primary alert isn't there -- EMA, National Weather Service, everyone is pushing different methods, digital alerts," he said. "So there hasn't been a dire push to revise the threshold for activating the sirens. Some communities have gone away from sirens altogether."

O'Halloran also said digital alerts have their pitfalls as well.

"I think we have alert fatigue. People see the alerts for so many different things, and they're busy with life, maybe ignore them," he said.