Tornado causes damage after touching down in Conway area

An F-1 tornado blew out a garage’s windows and snapped dozens of trees when it briefly touched down in an area just outside of Conway late Monday night.

Tommy Reaves, who lives off Old Reaves Ferry Road, said his home went dark just after his wife got an alert about a tornado warning on her cellphone about 10:30 p.m., waking the couple.

“We could here this noise that was just extremely loud, and I’ve always heard that a tornado sounded like a train, and you could hear the noise, and it was just horrible,” said Reaves, who said the earsplitting noise lasted about 10 or 15 seconds.

The tornado, with 95 mph winds, touched the ground for less than two minutes Monday night and had a path of about less than a mile when it hit around the area of Old Reaves Ferry Road and Inman Circle, striking about 8 miles east of Conway, according to data collected Tuesday morning by a storm survey team with the National Weather Service.

Reaves said he believed his home and others nearby were on the fringes of where the storm touched down and thought it traveled through a nearby swamp, describing a path where no trees were left standing.

No injuries were reported from the storm, according to weather authorities.

“I’m just thankful nobody got hurt, and that it was no damage to any of the structures other than the little bit to the garage,” said Reaves. “All that can be replaced. I’m just glad nobody got hurt.”

Over the weekend, NWS authorities warned severe weather could be on the way ahead of the activity, and Monday morning, NWS forecasters warned residents of the risk of an isolated tornado, along with the possibilities of damaging winds and severe thunderstorms.

Storms with high winds and heavy downpours boomed into Horry County, and other Southeast areas, ahead of a strong cold front that’s ushering in cooler temperatures this week.

The NWS issued a tornado warning from 10:20 to 10:45 p.m. for parts of Myrtle Beach and the Conway area, and more than 500 power customers were in the dark for roughly an hour in parts of north Conway and Loris along U.S. 701 when the storm knocked out lights as it came through the area.

Other parts of the Carolinas also suffered damage in the wake of Monday’s storms.

The Upstate area saw tornado warnings Monday afternoon, and severe winds believed to be a tornado scattered debris on roads, took down powerlines, caused fires, and flipped tractor trailers, according to a story from The State.

Tim Armstrong, meteorologist with NWS, said a the weather service’s storm survey team was also examining damage reported in the Whiteville area that may have been strong winds, but could have be from a tornado.

This story was originally published October 24, 2017 at 12:40 PM with the headline "Tornado causes damage after touching down in Conway area."