News Lead-writing
Cryis PolarmaeraNews Lead-writing Exercise2
A tornado with winds surpassing 85 miles per hour has ripped through Cowlitz County. It happened Thursday afternoon as the elementary school was letting out. Roofs were torn off buildings. The National Weather Service confirmed the tornado was an EF1 on the tornado scale . No people were seriously injured. The police chief said the worst debris and damage appeared to be near the intersection of 10th Street and Vandercrook Way. 20 houses were destroyed in Longview. The assisted living facility in Longview lost its roof according to Malloy. A number of other buildings along Main St. sustained considerable structural damage, Chief Malloy said. Harkensville Elementary School’s counselor, Patsy Trainer, said 18 children who were boarding buses at the time were treated for minor injuries at St. Luke’s. "I saw what looked like an enormous dust devil and then these large panels off a roof started falling everywhere," said Police Chief Denny Malloy, who was driving through Longview when the wind started swirling around his truck. It skipped through neighborhood streets and into downtown Longview before vanishing in the dark sky a short time later. No estimates yet on losses in the county. The large climbing toys on the elementary school’s playground have disappeared. A children’s slide punched through a window of the school office, Trainer reported. Cook said he saw trees were uprooted in the cemetery on Glebe Rd. A grain elevator was toppled just outside of Longview, which seems to have sustained the most damage in the county according to the police chief. Chris Christenson was inside 360 Auto Care, which is in nearby Kelso. A barn was flattened outside of Kelso on Granary Road. He said debris started spinning in the city block around him just after he parked. The tornado arrived in Kelso at about 3:13 PM. "It sounded like rumbling, just massive, massive rumbling. The wind picked up really fast," said Emmet Cook who was at the store buying a new carburetor for his Chevy pickup at the time.
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