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Pittsville, VA -
24 hours after severe storms ripped through Pittsylvania County, some Pittsville residents were still without power. The National Weather Service (web | news) has three tornadoes touched down in our area: in Hurt, Pittsville and Brookneal.
Phillip Johnson, a Pittsville resident, saw it all. He says, "It was all within five minutes. That's all we had then hail and the rain and the high winds."
Glenn Haskins, lives nearby, he also witnessed the storm. Haskins says, "It sounded like a locomotive coming through."
Willie Moon of Southside Electric Cooperative was out doing repairs: "We had to cut our way out"
Johnson says, “You knew what it was and the winds were so intense I bet it was 100 miles per hour or more.”
The winds were so powerful trees twisted off from their trunks and became splintered stakes.
Johnson says "It was throwing loaded buckets of mud dry wall compound. These things weigh like 70 pounds a piece and it was just throwing them off the deck like they were nothing, like they were empty pails."
At first glance, Philip Johnson knew what it was.
Philip Johnson, Witnessed Storm - "That's a tornado. I mean look at it this thing is so black and you could see the clouds and I was seeing them later on during the day it looked like funnel clouds -- but they just never really developed like that one did."
One resident we spoke with described this area as ground zero.
Moon says, “The trees came down and tore the poles. We got a lot of poles to fix."
Crews from Southside Electric tell us thousands of residents lost power.
Moon says, “ I think this is the worst I've seen since that storm Isabel.”
One man lost more than that.
Johnson says, “When the winds came through and blew all these trees over one of the horses got trapped. My oldest boy went up to check on the horse and before I could even get to him he said, Phil, forget the chainsaw, you got to bring a gun -- the horses legs are broke."
Rainbow, a 3-year-old horse, was like a member of the Johnson family.
Johnson says, “That's a picture you got to have in your head for the rest of your life”
Crews from Southside electric tell us they were on the scene until 11 p.m. Friday and were back on the scene fixing power lines at 6 a.m. Saturday.
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