AccuWeather
Broadcasters continue to cover the storm in a frightening moment of bad weather
As the harsh climate that plagued the southern United States on Wednesday shifted to the northeast, the storms were a little too close for the comfort of a newsroom covering the outbreak. A brief power outage interrupted live coverage by FOX8 WGHP chief meteorologist Van Denton of the storm in High Point, North Carolina, on Thursday night. “It’s about us. This is not the room we need to be in,” said Denton, referring to the rotation of a possible tornado before the creaking of the studio building could be heard on the audio. High Point, North Carolina, where the studio is located, had received a tornado warning just before 5 pm, when the building started to shake and shake. Denton and the two anchors, Neill McNeill and Katie Nordeen, quickly evacuated from the studio, entering the make-up room – an area considered safe because it is hidden as an interior room in the building. “That circulation is right above the TV station and we could feel and hear the wind outside the building and we lost energy for a second,” Denton continued to report from the makeup room, having brought his microphone. “In my 37 years of work at FOX8, I have never experienced anything like it,” said McNeill. “I never heard the roof shake like that and we never had to leave the studio on a broadcast like we just did.” After the storm passed, McNeill posted on Facebook that everyone was safe, that the building had remained structurally sound and that they were still in the air. “Our coverage continues”, he ended the post after describing the event “quite scary”. Even as damage assessments continued to arrive from the tornadoes on Wednesday across the south, new tornado warnings were issued throughout Thursday as the storm progressed toward the Carolinas. Tornado sirens could be heard in Fort Mill, South Carolina, on Thursday, while tornado alerts were being issued in the region. At night, only one potential tornado was detected by the National Weather Service’s Storm Forecast Center. The report was located in Pierce County, Georgia, and was found to have cut down at least four trees just before 2 pm (GMT). SPC observes strong winds in Archdale, Guilford County, North Carolina, the same county as High Point. The report notes that trees and power lines have been cut down on the south side of High Point and structural damage has been reported in the I-85 area. The NWS office in Raleigh, North Carolina, observed damage from bad weather in some areas outside of High Point and Burlington. A Twitter user took a picture of this cloud formation on Thursday, March 18, near Burlington, North Carolina. (Twitter / @ ImaOfTwo) In Wyoming County, West Virginia, hail up to two inches in diameter was measured in Saulsville, damaging cars and roofs. A preliminary damage assessment found that an EF-1 tornado may also have landed around Century in Lee County, Georgia, on Thursday morning. At NWS SPC, strong winds have been reported in the area around 9 am EDT. At 10 pm EDT, the SPC issued about 30 reports involving potential tornadoes, hail and high winds.