Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN/AP) - A great amount of damage was left in the wake of a confirmed EF-1 tornado on Monday afternoon that briefly struck the City of Buffalo. The tornado caused damage to a number of buildings, cars and trees in the Lower West Side neighborhood.
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City of Buffalo officials held a joint press conference on Monday with Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz to describe some of the damages that ensued, including minor roof damage to Buffalo City Hall, and more extensive damage just to the North.
"The area where the weather event hit the hardest was the Niagara, Carolina Street area," noted Mayor Byron Brown. "We saw some buildings where roofs were damaged and in some cases, roofs were torn off of buildings. The City Mission sustained roof damage. Hutch Tech High School sustained some window damage, a lot of trees have been damaged in the area."
Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz notes that due to the roof damages at the Ellicott Center, a nursing home and rehabilitation center, several dozen senior will have to relocate to a different facility.
"Out of the approximate 120 residents there, 35 will be displaced and have to be moved to a different location. So our Emergency Medical Services is working with them to ensure that it's a smooth move," said the county executive.
"All nursing home facilities have to have these types of contingency plans in place in case of an issue where they have to move their residents and that is being implemented by the owner of the Ellicott Center."
Some cars were overturned more into Downtown Buffalo, while a few others were hit by split trees, including two cars under a tree that split on Carolina Street in the Neighborhood Health Center parking lot.
All city crews including Buffalo Police, Fire and the Department of Public Works were all on hand assessing damages throughout the afternoon and into the evening hours. The tornado was said to have reached speeds up to 90 mph.
"Right now, we have no information on any injuries, which is great news. But we're going around with all the entities to assess any structural damage. Obviously, we have to make sure it's safe before anybody moves on any other aspects, and then we'll start the cleanup. But there's power lines down, there's obviously other damage that we're working through. But again, I can't stress enough, don't come down here. Let our first responders, let all the emergency workers do what they have to do without being impeded by anybody else trying to come down here," said Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia on Saturday.
The National Weather Service says the tornado touched down near the crux of where Lake Erie flows into the Niagara River, passing LaSalle Park. It ended after about six minutes just past Ellicott Street near the Kensington Expressway, traveling an estimated 1.4 miles.
To further, the National Weather Service says the tornado was preliminarily rated as an EF-1 with a maximum estimated wind speed of 90 mph (145 kph) based on the damage to trees, "the moving of several dozen rooftop air conditioning units, and the loss of roofing material on a couple of multi-level or multi-family units."
"It surprised everyone," added Poloncarz.
There were no immediate reports of injuries in wake of the tornado.
This is the third tornado reported in Erie County in a month, adding to the tornados that touched down in the Towns of Eden and West Falls on July 10. Two additional tornadoes were reported in neighboring Chautauqua and Genesee counties the same day.
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