Elmira residents clean up from tornado

Posted at: 07/27/2012 5:47 PM | Updated at: 07/27/2012 9:26 PM
By: Lynette Adams | WHEC.com

The National Weather Service confirms it was a tornado that touched down in Elmira. On Thursday, it uprooted trees, bent poles, damaged cars and homes and left thousands without power. 

The National Weather Service was in Elmira Friday surveying the damage. Some customers are still without power. 10,970 customers don’t have power still in Chemung County, that’s where Elmira is. In Bloome County, 506 customers are without power. 

While people are surrounded by devastation, many are counting their blessings. The storm they say could have been much worse.

Marvie McGee has lived in Elmira for 41 years and has never heard of a tornado in the area. The storm heavily damaged her garage, but there is not a scratch on her cars. She can’t believe it. She’s even more surprised she wasn’t hurt, and in fact, there have been no injures or deaths reported.

Right across the way, her neighbors at the East Gate Apartments pitched in to cleanup the mess left in the backyard. Peg Wood, who runs the apartment community, says people were out cleaning up at 7:30 a.m. Friday without being asked. Many people are thankful the storm didn’t do as much damage as it could have.

McGee said, “I'm just great. I went through the 1972 flood. I'm still here. People have lost lives in different areas in storms like this. But we did not lose lives in Elmira that I know of. So I'm very grateful.”

People are helping people out in Elmira, some good coming out of such a terrible storm.

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