Tornado-Force Winds Flatten Upstate New York City

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(TNS) – Just minutes before a powerful storm began ravaging the streets of downtown Rome, Joey Long, of Taberg, noticed the shift in weather as he was on the return trip of a Door Dash delivery.

He decided to pull over in the parking lot of the Grand Union grocery store on Erie Boulevard West to wait out the Tuesday afternoon storm.

“I could tell what the formation was, and I was a little concerned about it because it was coming in fast,” he said Wednesday. “But there was there was nothing I could do. I could not outrun it. I couldn’t. I just had to wait it out.”

He sat in his truck and tried to Facetime his wife. Then the truck started to lift off the ground.

“And it lifted me about a foot off the ground or so,” he said. “I thought I was going to flip my truck, but then it grabbed a hold of the front end and spun it. I did like a 360 and ended up four parking spots away from where I parked.”

Tornado-force winds reaching 79 mph hit nearby Griffiss Air Field at about 3:35 p.m. Tuesday. Those winds swept through much of Rome, hitting parts of downtown along George and Liberty streets hard.

A home for seniors lost its windows and a wall and was closed. A former Sears gas station, a focal point of the city, was destroyed. The city’s iconic mural of a man riding a horse painted on a brick wall — known as the Paul Revere mural — crumbled.

Gov. Kathy Hochul is expected to hold a briefing from Rome at 11:30 a.m.

On Tuesday, local officials called it a tornado, even though the National Weather Service has yet to officially confirm a touchdown. Those teams are doing storm surveys today.

As the morning wore on, the whine of chain saws and generators fill the air. State troopers directing traffic on major intersections because the traffic lights are out and dangling from the wires.

Streetlight poles were torn from their bases and lie entangled with downed trees.

Many sidewalks are impassable, blocked by fallen trees. Utility lines are lying in the ground and across walkways.

During Tuesday’s storm, Long sat in his truck for about 30 minutes while hail, wind and debris smashed the vehicle.

“It felt like the glass on my driver’s side was getting ready to bust,” he said. “There was nothing I could do. I was I was just at the mercy of it.”

When it was over, the former military member with emergency training got out to help. He said he began checking on people and seeing if anyone needed assistance. He said he went from danger mode to survivor mode.

He went to a nearby dialysis center, where he found a couple of women traumatized from the experience. He said, “You just survived the tornado like I did.”

Today, Long isn’t finished helping.

A day after surviving the storm, Long made his way back to Rome early Wednesday morning to help with the cleanup. He spent the morning helping remove debris from homes along George Street.

“I truly credit God for protecting me because there’s no other way around that I should not have survived being in the middle of a tornado,” he said.

This is a breaking story. It will be updated.