ONOVILLE, N.Y. (WIVB) - We’re used to seeing wild video of tornadoes from elsewhere, but this weekend, four twisters touched down in our own backyard. The National Weather Service can confirm that tornadoes hit Saturday in Corfu and Hilton near Rochester and Sunday in Onoville and Allegany State Park in Cattaraugus County.
Jessica Pangborn described what she saw and digitally recorded on the Kinzua reservoir at about seven o’clock Sunday night, “And I was watching it, and I thought it was really strange because the clouds were moving in two different directions.”
Bill Krebs was at a campsite in the Cattaraugus County community of Onoville.
Krebs said, “Campers saw the darkened sky like a funnel cloud, and most of the campers ran down to the lavatories which are stone block buildings.”
Onoville camper Al LaFredo said, “There’s multiple campers that are damaged. I think ours is one of the lucky ones, we lost a canopy.”
The winds were estimated to be 90 to 95 miles per hour, and did a number on Charlie Hebdon’s pontoon boat.
Hebdon said, “It went right up in the air and then just kept rolling over about four to five times.”
Twenty minutes after that tornado, the same storm formed another tornado over the hill inside Allegany State Park.
Monday was cleanup day in the Genesee County village of Corfu, where aerial photos from the County’s Emergency Management office show the devastation from the estimated 100 MPH winds of a tornado there on Saturday.
It destroyed John Preisach’s greenhouse business, and took the roof away.
Preisach said, “It’s out in the woods, it’s somewhere, I do not know where, and it was 76 feet long, steel roof.”
Corfu resident Ralph Bates says his yard has a whole new look now, “I lost six trees but, we can always re-plant.”
Corfu’s mayor says he will try to get some kind of disaster aid. About an hour after the Corfu tornado on Saturday, another one touched down in the Rochester suburb of Hilton.
