Around 3 PM Saturday afternoon, one or two tornado's cut a path through Sanford,N. C. in an area I use to live in. All the major damage would have been within 3-5 miles of my former address.
Lowe's Hardware--very large store like Home Depot, etc was hit and leveled almost. Manager of store sees storm on way to store and calls and warns store. At least 50 employees and 70 customers were rounded up and put in back of store. No fatalities or major injuries. Their parking lot was trashed and cars had window blown out and flipped upside down. A real mess.
Across the 4 lane major highway, the Tractor Supply store and a Big Lots discount store were hit and sustained major damage too. It hit a home subdivision first before coming this way and destroyed most of the subdivision, with approximately 30 homes destroyed.
Another business, Spanset was demolished as well. Major damages in these areas.
Only two deaths in our area, a truck driver and one other. God was good to us and spared many from certain death. They called this a Wedge Storm because of the width of the storm path and the pictures they have of the cloud. It has been since 1984 that we have had any weather like this. Carolina does not usually get these types of storms or tornados.
I am sure not one person in this town was not affected in some way by this storm.
Carol from Sanford, Lee County, North Carolina.