National Weather Service: Tornado Touched Down Near Waterford
WATERFORD (CBS13) — Wild winds came tearing through Stanislaus County on Wednesday as part of a storm that spawned a tornado near the town of Waterford.
The National Weather Service confirmed the EF-0 tornado touched down on Wednesday afternoon.
"We saw a funnel cloud. And then, I heard debris being ripped off from a farm building back in that farm back there. You could see it just going up into the air."
While Richard M. Moon Principal Steve Kuykendall was watching one funnel cloud, he says a loud crash came from behind him on the school campus.
"It was a loud ripping apart sound. A lot of debris just going up into the air. It actually lifted up the whole greenhouse. The base flew over the fence and hit the wall. You can see the markings right here where that base hit the wall," he said.
A small greenhouse was smashed to pieces, and a few feet away, the storm relocated a storage shed at Lucille Whitehead Intermediate School. The storage shed actually sits six inches from here, but the winds were so powerful it was pushed this far back, only stopping because of these metal poles.
The storm then blew into nearby Hickman. It knocked a large tree into a transformer at Hickman Middle School, taking out the power. Both schools closed on Thursday so crews could remove the tree and restore power.
Parent Jennifer Hansen says she was relieved school was out and children were at home when the storm hit.
"When little things like this happen, I hope everyone is prepared when something really big happens, so we can all come together as a community," she said.