NWS confirms 4th LI tornado touched down in Westhampton

Tornadoes touched down from East Islip to Oakdale and Shirley to Manorville. Nassau also had a tornado touch down in the area near Woodmere, Hempstead and Uniondale.

News 12 Staff

Nov 15, 2021, 6:43 PM

Updated 953 days ago

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The National Weather Service confirmed Monday that a fourth Long Island tornado touched down in the Remsenburg to Westhampton area on Saturday.
Tornadoes touched down from East Islip to Oakdale and Shirley to Manorville. Nassau also had a tornado touch down in the area near Woodmere, Hempstead and Uniondale.
In Shirley, Brandie Chasteen says a tornado split trees in half and ripped a roof right off the building next to her on Grand Avenue and McGraw Street.
"It was intense," Chasteen says. "The wind was crazy, so I got in my tub and figured that was the safest place."
Amanda Olsen and her family went to their Manorville basement as the tornado dropped a tree on their roof.
"It started to get really serious and really weird," Olsen says. "And as the tornado came through, we huddled on the floor and heard a noise I've never heard before and hope to never hear again."
Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone was in Westhampton Monday afternoon and sent out a warning to residents in the areas affected by the tornadoes this weekend.
"I urge residents to be careful in the affected areas particularly when it comes to trees where you could have limbs, branches that may not have fallen yet, but that could be a real hazard," says Bellone.
The county executive and emergency response officials toured a Suffolk County Department of Public Works yard and salt barn on Old Riverhead Road in Westhampton that sustained significant damage.
The tornado ripped off the side of the brick wall of the salt barn and left the ceiling sagging and structurally unsound. Bellone says the site provides salt and sand for the East End.
Bellone says the county is working with the state and federal government to assess the damage, but says there $1 million in damage done just to the recycling facility in the Town of Brookhaven.
News 12 meteorologists say that neither Nassau nor Suffolk county has seen four confirmed tornados in a single day. There has also never previously been a confirmed tornado on Long Island in the month of November.
No one was seriously hurt in any of the tornados.


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