National Weather Service Believes A Tornado Touched Down In Rockville

ROCKVILLE, Md. (WJZ) — Cleanup and confirmation. That put homeowners and weather researchers to work Friday.

Alex DeMetrick has details of a tornado in Montgomery County.

Thursday afternoon’s storm had tornado warnings scattered across the state. In Montgomery County, it turned out to be a lot more than just an alert.

The Lincoln Park neighborhood of Rockville went from quiet to violent within minutes late. Trees ripped free in different directions, some smashing into houses.

“It hit the corner. It hit it so hard, it made even the floor come out of the house,” said Mark Wilson.

“About 14 or so trees into homes, and knowing there’s no injuries, we’re very fortunate. I think that has a lot to do with the National Weather Service and people heeding those warnings,” said Chris Voss, Montgomery County Emergency Management.

Damage was spotty from Rockville toward the Howard County line. Because it’s a populated area, investigators from the National Weather Service had a lot of eyewitnesses.

“It was pretty, pretty intense for awhile there,” a woman said.

“It was pretty terrifying. And you see the black, you just feel like all of a sudden you’re in Iowa,” said Tracey Reeder.

“Combined with what we have from radar data in our office, we’re pretty convinced this one was a tornado. It’s just getting the details of how long the path was, how strong the winds were,” said Christopher Strong, National Weather Service.

That’s science today, but for people like Gail Koenig, it was terror.

Which now has to be removed and cleared, before the expensive job of repairing what was crushed.

“It scared the hell out of me. I was sitting on the couch and I heard this big bang. And I turned around and looked behind me and the ceiling plaster was down,” she said. “There was water pouring in and all you could see out the front window was the tree.”

The Red Cross reports temporary housing had to be found for 35 Montgomery County residents whose homes were damaged.