A tornado touches down in the city of Buffalo

Oh my God. Just to the roof, it just tore the roof off. Yeah. Tonight, pictures and videos are pouring into our newsroom after a confirmed ef one tornado brought severe destruction to downtown Buffalo just a few hours ago. Buffalo police are saying tonight they are aware of a touchdown near Niagara and Carolina streets. That's on the west side. Two on your side's video from there shows trees and massive branches down all over the road. First responders are on the scene and at this time, no reports of anyone being hurt. And at this hour, live storm team two radar show storms continuing to pop up across the region. Plus we are taking a live look now at the hills down in Salamanca as the worst of the weather moves into the southern tier now. And good evening everyone. I'm Scott Levin and I'm Mary Ellis Demmler. We have live team coverage coming up in just a moment but we want to get right to the forecast first. Yeah. Storm team two meteorologist, Dan Russell has been tracking what you need to know about these storms from the weather center right now. Dan, this is highly unusual Yeah, I mean, historical, it's already been a historic summer, but we did get that confirmation of an ef one tornado downtown Buffalo. So I want to take look at the radar here. This was at 1245 and you can see how intense this storm was, but this was a bit of a rare set up. Look at where the heaviest of the weather is located. It's actually south of downtown. The reason for the spin up more likely of that tornado. It was thanks to our Lake breeze boundary that set up right over downtown Buffalo. We had the Lake Erie breeze coming up from the southwest, the Lake Ontario breeze coming in from the north. That's what allowed that circulation on the northern side of this cell guy. So again, a very rare instance where we did have this ef one tornado combined again with a lot of that heavy rain as far as the active weather that we are currently seeing. Luckily things are quieting down in and around downtown Buffalo. But again, it got me else. Very rare indeed. Yeah. I mean, I don't have any memory, Dan of us really having anything right in the city proper like this. You know, we've had the cheek to WGA tornado a bit ago that a lot of people remember, of course, the Hamburg tornado. But for downtown Buffalo, there's really only one instance where we actually had a confirmation of a tornado and that was thanks to a water spout that briefly moved ashore in around the coast guard on Halloween of 2017. Outside of that, this was really the first true tornado. We are still acting some active weather. Of course, we still have a flash flood warning in place because of a lot of that heavier rain. And we do have a severe thunderstorm warning up towards northern Orleans County. That storm is going to be pushing out over Lake Ontario. Of course, we're going to talk more about today's weather this evening's weather and have that seven day forecast if there's going to be any more active weather all coming up here in a bit, Scott Merrill. It's been an incredible day. Thank you, Dan for that. And just into our newsroom now, a new look at the damage left behind after this afternoon, tornado check out the scene from Skyview Two. You can see a roof ripped right off of a building and tree debris down on the ground. Clean up right now is still underway and we have live team coverage for you tonight at six Nate Benson. Andy Paton and Claudine Ewing are all standing by tonight, but we begin with our Ron plant who just heard from city and county officials during a news conference shortly after it happened. Ron Mary Ellis, obviously a lot of clean up work under way here. The DPW crews very busy here on this stretch of Carolina. We're actually here at the intersection of Whitney may be able to see over my shoulder. They're actually trying to take a tree down back there. We heard the chainsaws a little while ago, but we really got the big picture assessment from Mayor Brown and his city emergency managers as well as Erie County executive mark polling cars. They told us that this weather actually hit here just before one o'clock this afternoon. Obviously, as you referred to it, we're getting all those video, the pictures and all the video coming in on the damage, especially again on Carolina in the vicinity of Seventh Street, but also other streets like Niagara and prospect primarily tree damage but also some some structural damage at a nursing home, which channel two's Claudine Ewing is going to tell you more about shortly but also more limited damage to the roof of City Hall and the city mission, plenty of down power lines as well. We have some counts. I think 800 in the city, specifically in the city. Building inspectors are currently assessing damage and warning that some buildings may be declared off limits for residents for now. We have a team of inspectors out going street by street trying to triage damage. We're looking for anything with down power lines that would be a hazard. Parapets and roofs on masonry buildings that have had damage, chimneys have fallen as our inspectors go through. We'll look for the most dangerous situations in some instances, people may not be able to go back home tonight. We will post a building's unsafe placard on those buildings. We have a street sweeper right in the background here right now as they're trying to clean up the street, one of the more bizarre scenes, a car flipped over on its roof at the Buffalo City Mission and another car next to it showing some damage as well. But again, you got to stress this, considering the fact that this hit in a very consolidated, very densely populated area in the city along Carolina and some of those streets, we don't have any reports of injuries. That's something we're really fortunate about in this type of situation reporting live here from Carolina on your side. I'm Ron Plant Channel Two News. Back to you incredible video. Thank you, Ron for sharing that. And we know this area. Well, it is just a block away from the two on your side. Studios and neighbors near Johnson Park were out around one o'clock this afternoon to survey the damage. And witnesses told us they could see the twisting winds that led to that tornado touchdown. That's crazy over here. The tornado, the tornado whipped through here. I mean, going about 100 miles an hour, just, just, just whipped through here like crazy clouds were coming really fast and moving too fast. And that's when I saw the scene things flying up in the air. And I said, oh my God, it's a tornado. So we ran inside and a good thing they did. Our Andy Paden has been out in the community this afternoon and he joins us live with more reaction from neighbors Andy. Yeah, Mary Alice, we're here on Prospect Ave right now. Just about a block and a half, maybe two blocks from where they say that ef one tornado touched down and you can see the damage is just everywhere. I mean, take a look at this over here. You can see this tree completely down on top of this car here. And that Ben, if you come with me this way, you can see again another site right here, another tree on top of this car at one point. Guys, this spanned the entire street down here. Crews have been working very hard to get this back up and running, but these are the sites we're seeing over here and luckily not too much damage to the houses up here. We did lose a chimney up there. Folks have been working on that trying to get the brick down from there. But we've kind of spent just the past hour walking up and down the street here and talking to some of these residents who say they actually saw this tornado up in the air and just listen to how they describe this. My dog, they start barking a lot, you know, and I said what happened when I see in the window? I saw that that was something like, you know, moving so faster. Oh, everything is up and the floor, I can look through the patio door and I could see pieces of building as big as a garage door moving horizontally through the air. It was unbelievable. Yeah, truly remarkable to see there. We want to show you some video now from Carolina and Whitney just a block away from. We are right now and that's where this large chunk of roof. That's actually part of a house on prospect where we are flew a block over to Whitney and is now shutting that street down. And as you can see the damage we're seeing continues down to Carolina where r this was where more trees still remain down, keeping most of the roads closed there. I want to bring you back out the prospect. Now you can see some of this debris on the ground here. It's very heavy and it is all over these neighbors' backyards across the streets here. What's amazing is they believe that this actually came from a building on Niagara street and flew all the way over here, which again, probably two blocks guys just up in the air. Once again, I know we stressed this a bunch but just the fact you see that traveling so far. Amazing. No one was hurt here guys. Yeah, it is amazing. Andy, it's so rare. It's such an odd thing to happen inland like that. We appreciate your reports. Tonight. Andy Paden live tonight and residents of the Eli Center nursing home, they have been forced now to evacuate after a portion of the roof ripped off the building, leaving the building uninhabitable tonight. Our Claudine Ewing is there with more on the moving effort underway right now, buddy. Well, we're going to bring you up to date. First of all, a lot of tree damage outside of the center. However, inside all of the residents are there. I had a chance to speak with one of the administrators on the phone today and he tells me that all of the residents are inside where the damage is because right now there is a crane on top. There is some roof damage where the residents were, when this actually hit, they were just moved or displaced to another part of the building. No one has been from this facility as of now, Ellicott Center is a skilled nursing facility. It is also a rehabilitation center. It is owned by a company out of the Bronx New York. I had a chance to speak with the administrator earlier today by phone. He told me that they were waiting for the fire department to come. We saw the fire department come whether or not they have deemed that residents have to be moved to another location that remains to be seen. But listen to what the Erie County executive told reporters earlier today, 35 of the approximate 120 are being moved under the plan that the nursing home operator has in place already. With New York State, every nursing home operator has to have an emergency contingency plan. If something should happen to the facility to where they're going to move the patients. So if the operator has another nursing home in this area where they have empty beds, they can move them there. If they have no empty beds in another nursing home that they own, they have to move them to another facility and pay for the cost. Once again, we are live outside of the ICT center here on Seventh Street. Again, this is a skilled nursing facility in a rehabilitation center. The residents are still inside as of now. However, the administrator did tell me that in case they have to move patients, they could move them to their other location, which is located on Delaware Avenue. We want to show you the extent of the damage. Look at this, this is like an antenna that actually flew off of one of the buildings. It's across the street and that's why we were able to pick it up. This is just extensive. It's something we have not seen in downtown Buffalo. At least not on the lower West side in some time. Now. Uh Once again, residents are inside, we do see cars on the outside. People are inside checking and there is a crane right now on the roof of this building. Trying to do some of the repairs that are needed because that's where most of the damage came from. When we're talking about damage. We have to go over to Johnson Park. That's where my colleague, Nate Benson is standing by live right now because there was a lot of damage there. Hi, Nate. Yeah, that's right. Claude Dean, as you just said, a lot of damage here and he saw a lot of damage. Ron saw a lot of P I in Johnson Park, Hutch Tech. Look at this massive tree that was just ripped to shreds. When that tornado whipped through the lower west side. We're only a block away from our new station too. So this is how close to the damage was to where we are. I mean, just take a look at this tree bark peeled off like a banana. So just intense winds coming by right behind me. You see one of those light poles bent another one further back, completely bent over from the winds of that tornado. I spoke to an eyewitness who lives right across the street here on Johnson Park who saw the whole thing unfold. Here's what he had to say. I've never experienced it. I've always seen it on TV. You know, hamburger usually has certain things like that, but it felt it, it was, it felt unreal, you know, but it's also like, it's buffalo. So it was also like, you know, not too excited, too shocked. About it, but it was definitely shocking to have some in the middle of summer. Like, ok, this is crazy. Did you have downtown tornado potentially on your bingo card? Not at all. No, not at all. I think it was gonna be raining but I'm like this windy and just making sure my car and everything was ok. It was, it was unexpected. Yeah. And the scene here in Johnson Park all afternoon has been very active. A lot of residents bringing limbs out from their backyard DPW cruises you can see behind me here working very hard to remove all of that debris from Johnson Park. They're going to be here well into the evening. And so will we working on all the updates we can possibly provide, Scott Mariel? Certainly, none of us saw this coming today. Of course, quite a day weather wise here in downtown Buffalo Live and on your side. Nate Benson channel two news, Nate. Thank you and stick with us on air and online as storm Team two continues to track this severe weather for you and be sure to download the two on your side app for live radar. The latest forecast in minute by minute breaking news alerts. It's free right now. It's on your smartphone app store.