Editor’s note: The following story is based on the latest National Weather Service loss survey report released on Saturday night. It provides the most detailed description of the EF3 tornado that hit Bensalem on Thursday night. The Bureau of Meteorology in Mount Holly, New Jersey has five investigative teams investigating reports of damage from the Lehigh Valley to the Jersey Shore due to Thursday’s storm. They confirmed nine separate tornadoes, three of which occurred in Bucks County.
This is the time it took for the rare EF3 tornado to spread 3.5 miles of damage from northeast Philadelphia and then jump the county border into Bensalem, where it caused the most damage.
At 7:04 pm on Thursday evening, the tornado landed near Southampton Road, Kelvin Avenue and Trevose Road. Before crossing the county road into the Treworth section of Bensalem, it uprooted several softwood and hardwood trees and blew down large branches.
The trail continued between Treworth Road in Bucks County and Peyton Street in Philadelphia, destroyed more trees before crossing Lucans Street, and entered briefly before crossing back to Bensalem The northern end of Poksin Valley Park in the city.
The next attack was the Beechwood Manor in Trevose, between Somerton and Trevose Road, where it caused minor damage to the house and blew up sections of vinyl fences.
In the first few minutes of its life, the tornado had not reached its maximum speed of 140 miles per hour. But when it gets closer to Somerton Road in Trevose, things get better.
When it entered the Metropolitan Industrial Center near Somerton Road, the wind increased and the path widened.
For subscribers: “Cover immediately!” When the EF3 tornado hits, the residents of Bensalem have a few seconds to make a life or death decision
Five wooden utility poles broke off near Somerton Road and the ground of Suez Water Company. Seven warehouse buildings northeast of Somerton Road suffered at least minor damage.
Northtec, located in the 2500 block of Metropolitan Drive, was the worst-hit building in the complex. It suffered major structural damage. Most of the roofing material was blown away. The wind blew the doors and windows of Garage Bay.
The roof-mounted HVAC units were moved or blown away from the building. The open hatch caused the inner wall to collapse. In the parking lot, a car was lifted and turned over like a hot wheel toy. A steel flagpole was flattened to the ground.
After EF3 (the first time in Pennsylvania since 2004) completed the industrial center, the tornado moved southeast to Concord Park and Linconia communities, which were located on the Old Lincoln Highway between the street road and Highway 1. By the highway. Houses along the route were damaged on Carter Road, and trees along Carter and Sussex Road north of Buckfield Terrace were damaged.
More information about the Ben Salem Tornado: “Not in this neighborhood”: No one expected the tornado to hit Ben Salem’s Concord Park, Rock Hill Avenue
Here, the tornado reached its widest point about three tenths of a mile, consuming more debris it encountered.
When the storm crossed the Pennsylvania Turnpike, an elevated exit sign was blown off. It was found half a mile away.
Just north of the toll road, an uprooted tree in the parking lot caused minor damage to the hotel. Slightly north of the toll road and south of Dongjie Road, a large billboard was blown down. The roof of a small public utility building was knocked off.
At the restaurant 52 in Tuscany on the northern edge of the tornado, the chain fence was razed to the ground, and several small trees in the parking lot were uprooted.
The wind strengthened again, but the path of the storm’s destruction narrowed as it moved to the next target: the Faulkner Automobile Group dealership next door.
Four of Street Road’s six dealer showrooms were severely damaged. The Buick/GMC showroom performed the worst.
Due to wind pressure, the exterior walls showed signs of structural fracture. Rooftop HVAC units were thrown into the parking lot behind the building. All dealer signs near the main road were blown out.
Old and new vehicles suffered severe damage due to flying debris or strong winds.
The tornado then pushed to the dealer’s main repair garage, where the most serious damage occurred.
After most of the outer walls collapsed and the roof exploded, the southwestern part of the building was razed to the ground. Most of the internal walls still stand tall. The rooftop HVAC installation was thrown away from the building. A device landed nearly 200 yards downstream.
The damage at the east end has been reduced, part of the exterior wall has been damaged, and almost every garage door has been exploded. A small pickup truck was crushed under the collapsed exterior wall.
The wind blew through the garage area, taking away car parts and tools, which were later located downstream of the building. Large pieces of flying debris flattened vehicles near the main garage building. The wind blows other vehicles into the air, and then throws them down.
The next targets of the tornado were the Weisser Homes and Penn Valley Terrace mobile home parks behind Faulkner on the Old Lincoln Highway. It passed through a thick wall of mature trees, most of the trees peeled off to their bare broken trunks.
Once, the wind blew and threw a large storage container full of car parts from the Faulkner service garage parking lot in the woods.
Several mobile homes suffered some damage. The worst of them was an uninhabited house, which was blown by the wind and smashed to the ground. Most of the roof of a double-wide mobile home was blown up. Throughout the back-to-back mobile home park, trees are torn down, broken, uprooted and twisted.
After the storm passed the Old Lincoln Highway on Rockhill Road, its path of destruction was significantly reduced and its anger began to slow down.
It passes Walmart and Lowe’s shopping malls, and then passes Target-Home Depot shopping mall on Rockhill Road.
No structural damage was found in the building there, but in a row of trees north of the intersection of the large parking lot area and the Pennsylvania Turnpike, many small trees were broken and uprooted. The exit ramp sign was blown down in the transfer area.
The tornado continued east-southeast across Highway 1 into Bensalem and headed to the residential area. The roofing materials of some houses were lost and slightly damaged.
The tornado blew across Rockhill Road and along Richlieu Road towards the Christian Life Center, where it broke the trees and uprooted them. The wind blew away the paneling of the church spire, but the spire was not damaged in other ways.
The dying tornado crossed Galloway Road and entered Bensalem Town Community Park near Bristol Road. It left minor tree damage before disappearing at 7:12 in the evening