A tornado touched down in Hillsborough on Friday afternoon, one of a string of similar storms across the area.
The National Weather Service reported that a significant portion of the damage was concentrated near the intersection of Old N.C. 86 and Interstate 40, about 10 miles south of Hillsborough.
“We've got a lot of cleanup to do and a lot of fencing to build, and it's coming right in the spring season where we have a lot of farming and tending the fields and whatnot,” said Roger Nutter, manager and co-founder of Maple View Farm Milk Company in Hillsborough.
Nutter said the tornado totally destroyed two barns, with one more in danger of falling. Additionally, one cow died, and uprooted trees toppled many of the farm’s fences, leaving pastures unusable and forcing Nutter to move 125 cows to other locations.
“(It was) scary to see all the devastation and what a tornado does,” Nutter said. “You've always seen it before, but it's always looking at somebody else's mess and it's just a lot different when it's your own.”
Still, Nutter expects the farm to be back in shape by this summer, and he said the farm is still able to produce and sell milk.
The Town of Hillsborough’s report immediately following the storm expressed similar findings — scattered debris, downed power lines and fallen trees, but “no major issues.”
For a weather event like Friday’s tornado, the damage was not as bad as it could have been, said Bill Gentry, UNC assistant professor of health policy and management and director of the Community Preparedness and Disaster Management Program.
“By Sunday, it was really a non-story, which from a disaster management perspective is great,” Gentry said. “There was no fingers pointed, there was no, ‘Why didn’t we do this?’ There was no loss of life.”
