Neighbors come together to clean up after surprise tornado

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — Clean-up is underway after a tornado that swept through some New Hanover County neighborhoods yesterday afternoon.

An EF-1 tornado touched down in Ogden knocking down trees and leaving debris all over Timber Creek Lane.

“It sounded like a freight train was going by right out of the landfall area across the creek, and pretty soon the freight train started getting louder,” Stan Washlesky said, “and then it dawned on me we don’t have any railroad tracks around here in this location.”

Today neighbors and contractors worked together to clean up storm damage, but Washlesky says it’s nothing the neighborhood hasn’t handled before.

“Maybe we’re just kinda conditioned to it from previous hurricanes I’ve been through, so I wasn’t that scared,” he said. “We were just glad to see that there was no houses that got hit or damaged severely.”

Washlesky says in times like these everyone comes together to help one another out.

“You might not talk to some of the neighbors for a year, and then all of a sudden everyone becomes very talkative,” he said.

He says he thinks the neighborhood will be about 95-percent back to normal by the weekend.

The National Weather Service says yesterday’s tornado had maximum winds of about 90 miles per hour.

Starting on Monday New Hanover County will collect vegetative yard debris for those impacted by the tornado.