The EF3 tornado cut a 16-mile path, up to 600 yards wide, through Nash and Edgecombe counties just after 12:30 p.m. Wednesday, according to the National Weather Service. The winds topped 150 mph.
The tornado destroyed homes, flipped cars and trucks, ripped part of the roof from a massive Pfizer factory and snapped trees as it barreled through the area north of Rocky Mount. Sixteen people were injured, with two receiving life-threatening injuries, according to the National Weather Service.
“I know the power of prayer. And that's what I did. I prayed. And you can see the devastation of it. The storm hit the front, lifted up and tore the back up,” said Carolyn Slade, who owns Saint Stephens Loving Daycare Center.
She said the tornado looked like it was coming right for the daycare, where she had about 80 staff and children inside. Slade said the staff lined everyone up against a back wall as the tornado passed, doing just as they had practiced during tornado drills.
The daycare avoided a direct hit from the twister, which could have devastated the building. The daycare was damaged, and debris broke one window.
Witnesses said the tornado sounded like a train barreling down on them. A day later, that was replaced by the sound of chainsaws as crews worked to clear the streets and get power back on.
“It was scary. Horrifying. You just look at everything, and with a storm coming your way... you're powerless. You can't do nothing,” Slade said Thursday as volunteers worked Thursday to clear her property.
“I was thankful because none of our kids were hurt,” she said. “All of this is replaceable, but lives are not.”
Josh Brown, a youth pastor at Rise Church, said he went outside to see the storm. But then he ended up locked out as the tornado was coming his way.
“I saw the clouds spinning, and I saw the debris flying, and it was just kind of posted up, and I was 'like, oh, no, is that about to come towards me?' That's when it turned into panic,” he said.
“I've always wanted to see a tornado, never wanted to be thrown up into one. So that's what was going through my head,” he said. “Once the tornado paused and you couldn't tell if it was going to continue to come this direction or if it was going to turn. So I was like, 'God, please protect me,' because at this point I have nowhere to go.”
Brown survived his close call with the strong tornado. And then got to work cleaning up. He said he put out a call to his youth group to come help clean up.
“They came with their work gloves. They came with rakes. We had chainsaws out there,” Brown said. “A lot of people don't have the resources financially either to pay someone or the equipment. But in a community, you have a lot of people coming together that do have those resources and that manpower.”
He said the church plans to get another group together to go help clean up in Dortches, the nearby community hardest hit by the twister.
Officials are still trying to survey all the damage from Wednesday’s story that damaged and destroyed homes and businesses.
The tornado destroyed Mark Frohman’s house in the Great Glen neighborhood. The front of his house looks almost normal, but the tornado tore the roof from part of the back of the home.
“This is where it came in, the patio used to be right through that door,” he said. Frohman and his wife were home when the tornado hit.
“We both ran for cover in different directions and fortunately neither one of us were really hurt,” he said. “It sounds like the end of the world is about to happen, it’s so loud.”
“I’m very grateful, thankful that we’re OK,” Frohman said. “We appreciate the people that have come out to help and support us.”
The City of Rocky Mount will be under a state of emergency until 5 p.m. on Aug. 28.
Spectrum News 1 reporters Rachel Boyd, Patrick Thomas, Jenna Gaertner and Evan Sery contributed to this article.