Galestown residents react to storm caused by EF-1 tornado

GALESTOWN, Md. – The National Weather Service says an EF-1 tornado touched down on parts of Delmarva for a total of around 15 minutes Friday.

One of the hardest hit areas – Galestown in Dorchester County.

“It sounded like literally like a freight train running over the house,” said Galestown resident Shelley White.

White is one of the many Galestown residents that had to hunker down in their basement while Friday’s powerful storm blew through the area.

“We have these hundreds of year-old trees and they were literally twisted at the top, some of them and it caused several of them to fall, as you can see we have a huge mess here and one of the tree tops fell into the roof and penetrated the house in a couple different places,” said White.

In addition to damage to the roof of the home, White says the storm caused significant water damage to the inside of the home.

Her family was waiting on the insurance adjuster Monday to come survey the damage.

Meanwhile, Elissa O’Loughlin was on her way back from Crisfield Friday when the storm blew through.

“I had to make a very round about route to get here and when I arrived there was a gentleman standing there telling me to stop because there was a tree down and when I started talking to him he was white as a sheet and said that the big pine tree at the edge of my driveway had come down right in front of him as he was driving,” said O’Loughlin.

Dan Parsons, who lives nearby, was fortunate his home and vehicle were unscathed.

“We just, we saw it through the window and barricaded ourselves in our mud room and waited for it to pass over and when we came out, you can see behind me the tree had fallen it’s a big elm tree an English Elm and then the cedar tree fell down. And then on the other side of my house it snapped a telephone pole and ripped the guardrail off the bridge on the other side,” said Parsons.

Thankfully, the people we spoke with Monday did not sustain any injuries from Friday night’s storm.

Town officials say some residents are still experiencing power and water outages.

If you are without drinking water, supplies are being distributed at Town Hall.