So far five tornadoes confirmed for West Virginia last week; damage assessments to continue this week 

The National Weather Service in Charleston says five tornadoes have so far been preliminarily confirmed to have hit West Virginia during last Tuesday’s severe weather event. Crews from the weather service will continue to do damage assessments this week.

As of Monday morning, a total of nine tornadoes have been confirmed to have hit the area served by the National Weather Service in Charleston. Those include five in West Virginia, two in northeast Kentucky and two in southeast Ohio.

Meteorologist Joe Curtis said that number may increase this week as damage assessment teams continue to work in Lincoln County and in parts of Kanawha State Forest along with other locations that are brought to the agency’s attention.

“We have been having people contact us with damage that they might have and so we may also have other places we’d be looking into,” he said.

Three tornadoes have been confirmed to have touched down in Kanawha County April 2: an EF2 tornado that went eight miles from Cross Lanes to Wallace, an EF1 tornado that destroyed two mobile homes near Quick and an EF1 tornado that briefly touched down inside the St. Albans City Park, causing “significant uprooting of hardwood trees” according to a preliminary report from the National Weather Service in Charleston. 

Another tornado is confirmed to have hit off of Fifth Street near the Cabell and Wayne county lines, the weather service said. Details about the tornado were not available Monday morning. 

An F2 tornado touched down west of Mallard Road near the town of Hico in Fayette County, causing significant tree damage and damaging or destroying several homes and businesses, according to the weather service. One home was shifted several feet off its foundation and its metal roof tossed approximately 350 yards, the agency said.

Last Tuesday’s weather event brought winds and hard rain through the Kanawha Valley early Tuesday afternoon, taking down trees, powerlines and billboards and leaving around half of Kanawha County residents without power. 

Gov. Jim Justice issued a state of emergency for Fayette, Kanawha, Lincoln, and Nicholas counties after storms thunderstorms caused flooding, downed trees, power outages, and road blockages. He amended the state of emergency Thursday to include Barbour, Brooke, Hancock, Marshall, Ohio, Wetzel, and Wood because of flooding and other storm-related threats. On Monday, Justice added Pleasants County to state of emergency for last week’s severe weather.