Jul 26, 2008 12:40 pm US/Eastern
Confirmed Twister Rips Through 11 N.H. Towns
PITTSFIELD, N.H. (WBZ) ―
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This house on Lake Wentworth in Wolfeboro, N.H. suffered serious damage from a tornado that swept through the area Thursday.
J. Eich/WBZ
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The Stevens home was destroyed.
WBZ
The National Weather Service confirmed a tornado was responsible for severe damage in 11 New Hampshire towns on Thursday.
Meteorologist John Jensenius confirmed Friday that the twister hit nine towns, and Saturday, after inspecting further damage, added Pittsfield and Northwood. He also updated the previous estimate of the swath of destruction, saying the storm's path was about 40 miles long and about a third of a mile wide at spots.
Jensenius says the tornado moved from Deerfield, where it killed a woman in her home, to Northwood, Epsom, Pittsfield, Barnstead and Alton. It then moved through New Durham, Wolfeboro, Freedom, Ossipee and Effingham.
In several towns, it was an EF2 tornado on the Fugita Scale with winds of 111 to 135 mph. The Fujita Scale ranks tornados from EF 0 to 5, with 5 being the worst with winds of more than 200 mph.
Jensenius said the twister moved at 40-50 miles an hour.
Brenda Stevens, 57, died and her husband and 3-month-old grandson were hurt in the violent storm. They were in a home on Northwood Lake that completely collapsed.
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Read more on their story.)
Neighbors said she had been watching the infant boy while his parents, Stevens' stepson and his wife, were at work.
It was the first tornado-related death in New Hampshire since 1946 and the first in New England since a twister hit Great Barrington, Mass. in 1995.
The tornado and severe thunderstorms left an intermittent path of destruction concentrated along a path running about 20 miles northeast from the lake to New Durham.
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Interactive Storm Damage Map Officials estimate that a half-dozen homes were destroyed and more than 200 damaged. The storms tore apart thousands of trees, toppling many onto homes. Damage estimates will likely to be in the millions of dollars.
Fifteen towns were affected. Nine of them suffered major damage - Ossipee, Wolfeboro, Alton, New Durham, Barnstead, Pittsfield, Epsom, Northwood, and Deerfield.
Anyone with questions should call a new public information line at 1-888-330-6764.
(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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