EF3 tornado with 160 mph winds levels homes in Brunswick County; 3 dead, 10 injured

WILMINGTON, N.C. — An EF3 tornado killed three people and injured 10 others when it struck late Monday night in Brunswick County, near Ocean Isle Beach in southeastern North Carolina. The twister left residents trapped or missing and dozens of homes damaged, officials said.

“Last night’s tornado in Brunswick County has been rated as a high-end EF3 on the Enhanced Fujita damage scale with winds estimated at 160 mph,” the National Weather Service in Wilmington tweeted.

It was spawned along the edge of the same weather system bringing bitterly cold temperatures to much of the nation.

>> Meteorologist John Ahrens was in Brunswick County to survey the damage. Watch the video at the top of this page for his full report.

The tornado hit just before midnight, damaging houses, ripping some off their foundations, and snapping trees in half.

Minutes later, the National Weather Service’s office in Wilmington warned of structural damage and downed power lines near Highway 17 in Grissettown.

“Avoid the area,” the agency tweeted. They confirmed Tuesday that a tornado did touch down, but have not elaborated yet on the storm’s rating.

[PHOTOS: Deadly tornado levels Ocean Isle neighborhood]

The tornado ripped open homes, flipped cars and uprooted trees in Ocean Ridge Plantation, said Ed Conrow, Brunswick County’s emergency services director. Dozens of other homes were damaged by the “fierce tornado,” Gov. Roy Cooper said in a tweet.

“The sky lit up and there was a lot of pop-pop-popping. And the loud thunder. And then it sounded like a train, a freight train coming through. The roar of a freight train. That’s when all the damage occurred,” Sharon Benson, who lives in the neighborhood, told the Associated Press.

Photos distributed by the sheriff’s office showed first responders walking through a debris field of uprooted trees and crumpled piles of boards and bricks in the golf course community. Hours later, aerial footage from WTVD showed a handful of home lots covered in splintered wood, with debris trailing from one house onto the fairway of the golf course. Several other roofs had damage ranging from torn-off shingles to roof beams exposed where the storm tore a hole.

“It’s something unlike I have ever seen before,” said Brunswick County Sheriff John Ingram. “A lot of destruction. It’s going to be a long recovery process.”

Conrow said people were trapped in homes. The Wilmington Fire Department tweeted that it sent teams to help find people missing after the tornado.

First responders went house to house to check on people. Just before 5 a.m., Brunswick County first responders said three people were killed in the tornado and at least 10 people were hurt, according to WRAL.

(WATCH BELOW: Meteorologist John Ahrens gives a live update from the neighborhood that was hit hard by the storm)

By midday, Conrow said no other people had been found injured and that nobody else was missing.

Benson, 63, said her roof was damaged, the garage door was blown off, windows were shattered and nearby trees were uprooted. She was meeting Tuesday with an insurance representative to discuss repairs. She said her neighbors also sustained heavy damage.

She said she was surprised to hear heavy winds and thunder and see intense lightning just before midnight Monday.

“They said it was going to rain. Not severe weather at all. No forewarning,” she said.

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Photos: Deadly possible tornado strikes North Carolina coast The Brunswick County Sheriff's Office in North Carolina shared several photos early Tuesday after a deadly possible tornado touched down. (Brunswick County Sheriff's Office, NC)

Officials said the most damage is in the Ocean Ridge Plantation area, and that is where all the injuries and deaths were reported. In Ocean Ridge, there were at least 50 homes damaged with 9 destroyed.

“I’ve seen devastation that I have not seen in many years, having a public safety background myself,” said the Chairman of the Brunswick County Board of Commissioners, Randy Thompson. “It truly, truly was a disaster last night. And again, we just want to remember those that we lost, and our thoughts and prayers, as we move forward.”

(WATCH BELOW: Aerial footage of the destruction from WTVD)

CHOPPER VIDEO: Footage of deadly tornado destruction in Ocean Isle

“It’s close to home. It could’ve been my loved ones, you know what I mean?” lifelong resident Chris Osborne told WTVD on Tuesday morning.

Osborne has lived in the area all his life but said the storms overnight sounded different.

”It was loud. It kept me up most of the night,” he said.

Brunswick Electric Membership Corporation said thousands of people lost electricity. At the height of the storm, more than 37,000 outages were reported. That number was down to about 3,000 by noon.

Gov. Roy Cooper issued a statement later Tuesday morning, saying he had spoken with local leaders and the state was ready to send help to the area.

Rescue operations were underway in the early hours of the morning and several missing person reports had been filed. However, investigators have now said all those who were missing have been found.

Crews resumed surveying the damage when the sun rose Tuesday morning. Some homes were leveled, others have extensive damage.

“We’ve completed search and rescue operations,” Conrow said “We are going to transition into a recovery phase where we’re going to start doing preliminary damage assessments, working with our utility partners and our state and local agencies to kind of get our community back to normal as possible.”

”Just try to come together and rebuild. That’s all we can do,” Osborne said.

Mark Willis, the meteorologist in charge for The National Weather Service’s office in nearby Wilmington, said the same cold front bringing freezing temperatures, ice and snow from Canada to Mexico created conditions favorable to tornadoes in North Carolina, where it pushed up against a warm front from the Gulf of Mexico.

“We had very minimal warning,” Conrow said. “We had a tornado warning from the National Weather Service that was broadcast, but at that time the storm was already on the ground causing damage. We’ve even been talking with our partners at the National Weather Service and they were very surprised how rapidly the storm intensified. It’s something they normally don’t see. So, we didn’t have much warning and at the time of night where most people are home and in bed, it creates a very dangerous situation.”

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Deadly Ocean Isle tornado (WRAL)

Steve McCreedy, 69, told the Associated Press that he and his wife were awakened by their dog and dove into a closet as they heard their windows shattering and trees snapping outside.

“I heard my dog was kind of whimpering and I got up and went in to see her. And all of a sudden I just started hearing the rumbling, like they say, the train getting louder and louder,” he said.

“So I yelled to my wife, and we have an interior closet that we have designated as the place to go when something like that happens. And we dove in there. As soon as that happened, we had glass shattering and the trees were breaking.”

He said that he has a weather radio to keep them informed of threats, and while he said he was aware severe thunderstorms were possible, he was never alerted to the possibility of a tornado until the weather was upon them.

He said he’s got a generator to keep their refrigerator going, and feels fortunate the damage wasn’t worse. He said his neighbor’s home was “leveled.”

“This is definitely going to be a long-term event -- the recovery in Ocean Ridge,” Conrow said. “This is going to take a lot of hard work, effort between cleanup, rebuilding and getting the families back to a normal state of life.”

Conrow declined to offer details about the injuries or deaths, but said no one else was reported missing as of early afternoon.

Gov. Cooper is expected to visit the area on Wednesday.

Check back with wsoctv.com for updates on this developing story.

The Associated Press contributed t this report.

SEE: Possible tornado strikes North Carolina coast (NCD)

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