Widespread damage following the 1993 F-4 tornado in Petersburg (Photo courtesy Historic Petersburg Foundation Inc.)
Petersburg took a devastating hit 25 years ago today.
About 1:30 p.m. on Aug. 6, 1993, the strongest tornado ever reported in Virginia, an F4 storm with winds in excess of 200 mph, destroyed much of the downtown. It then proceeded to blast Pocahontas Island, damaging 80 percent of the homes there, then crossed Interstate 95 and tore apart a Walmart that stood where the Sam’s Club is currently located near South Park Mall.
Three people died in the store, and almost 200 were injured there. The storm also injured nearly 40 in Petersburg and on Pocahontas Island.
Bill Martin, director of The Valentine in Richmond, was director of tourism for Petersburg at the time. He says he didn’t even realize what had happened until he stepped outside of the Petersburg Area Art League building.
“One building in Old Towne had its side pulled out, and there was a bed sitting [on the wall] exposed,” Martin says. He adds that the tornado wrecked Old Towne to the point where it hasn’t been financially viable to repair parts of it to this day.
The National Weather Service reported that 58 buildings were heavily damaged or destroyed in Petersburg during the storm, including the old train station, which was the oldest standing train station in the state. The tornado was one of 18 in Virginia that day, the largest single-day tornadic outbreak reported in the state.
The first touched down in Kenbridge in Lunenburg County, seemingly out of nowhere. Within minutes a simple thunderstorm morphed into an F2 on the five-tiered Fujita Scale for measuring tornadoes, according to the National Weather Service. For 40 minutes the winds tore up houses, barns, roads and businesses for 38 miles across four counties. The total cost of damage for this tornado alone was nearly $1 million.
The Petersburg storm reportedly had multiple vortexes, like a scene out of “The Wizard of Oz,” with smaller vortexes seemingly dancing around a larger one. Its winds were so strong that an old caboose that had been anchored to the ground was flung 20 feet. Across I-95, the damage done to the Walmart was awe-inspiring. “The tornado basically does a slice through the building,” Martin says.
But the storm had not finished yet. It continued into Prince George County, downgraded to an F2 in intensity, yet remained incredibly destructive. The storm caused a building at a sand and gravel company to collapse, killing one employee who had sought shelter there. It also flipped cars and trucks on roads and bent various industrial machinery.
And it was still going. The tornado moved into Hopewell as an F1 storm. Even so, the winds still managed to cause minor damage to 49 homes. From there it moved into Charles City County at F0 intensity before it dissipated.
This monstrous tornado traveled through three cities and one county for 12 miles. It caused $47.5 million in total damages, 90 percent of the total damages from all the tornadoes that day. It did all of this in 15 to 20 minutes. Combined, the storms accounted for 256 injuries, four deaths and an estimated $52.5 million in damages.
This outbreak of tornadoes wasn’t just uncommon for Virginia, it is incredibly rare in general for a “family of tornadoes” to form in the middle of the summer, according to the National Weather Service.