HILLSVILLE — What the National Weather Service in Blacksburg confirmed as a straight-line wind event tore through an approximately one-mile stretch of Hillsville on April 11 at about 8 p.m., said Carroll County Emergency Services Coordinator Gary Bergeron.
There were no casualties or injuries, despite some alarming property damage left in its wake.
The most hair-raising incidents occurred near the intersection of Interstate 77 and U.S. 58, where a gas pump was blown over, a Super 8 motel sign was damaged, an unoccupied camper was blown over onto an unoccupied pickup truck and several vehicles were damaged by road signs that had been broken and flung by the winds, which were clocked at 80-85 mph.
“Crews went up towards Airport Road thinking that was the path, but there was no other incident than road wash from a logging area,” Bergeron said. “We got reports the next day. There was a linear path of tree damage across 77 through Old Galax Pike... the debris was in a north-facing pattern. That was really about the extent we had reported to us. I would say we were fortunate it was contained to that one-mile stretch.”
Subsequently, there were 18 additional calls for service that were either about downed trees or power line issues, he noted. There were a few outbuildings destroyed along Old Galax Pike, as well.
“We were not made aware of any extended outages through the area, including through Appalachian Power,” Bergeron said.
The storm affected Wilkes and Surry counties in North Carolina.
“We had the confirmed tornado on the ground in Ronda, N.C.,” which was part of the same system that was coming toward Carroll County, he said. “When we had that confirmation, we were still in active [tornado] watch.”
The National Weather Service in Blacksburg was not able to confirm any rotation on their radar, indicating that the winds in Carroll weren’t from a tornado.
“I was expecting far worse, but the bulk of the severity ended east of us. We were fortunate that what little event we were part of, that was the extent of it for that system,” Bergeron said.
He also was caught in the wind event — he was out driving with his family when their vehicle was hit with a sign that shattered much of the glass, though nobody was hurt. Bergeron immediately got his family to a secure spot and called in to the National Weather Service to see if resources needed to be dispatched.
He continued, “It was a unique turn of events. You don’t anticipate being in it and going to work at the same time... Going from something chaotic to something coordinated so fast, and trying to check out what we thought was the path, immediately investigating what happened.”
He gave credit to “all those responders that really brought sense and order to everything that happened. It had people legitimately scared, so credit where credit’s due.”
Further complicating the matter was the fact that everything else that dispatchers and first responders normally deal with naturally kept happening, as well. “There were two other calls for service while we were investigating,” including a wreck and a vehicle fire at the same time, he said.
“We were trying to discern if these were related events or just business as usual,” he said. They turned out to be unrelated, but “the system did what it was built to do.”
He thanked Carroll County Fire & Rescue, Hillsville Volunteer Fire Department, Carroll County Sheriff’s Office and Hillsville Police Department for their response and assistance.