Three people, including two 6-year-old girls, were killed when a tornado ripped through a small town in upstate New York, authorities said Sunday.
Twin sisters Emily and Kenni Bisson were killed when a tree crushed their home in Clark Mills, the Oneida County sheriff’s office said in a Facebook post. Shelly Johnson, 50, was also killed when a tree struck her home less than a mile away.
An EF1 tornado with maximum speeds of 105 mph touched down in Clark Mills just before 4 a.m. Sunday, according to the National Weather Service. The twister was on the ground for about five minutes and ripped through the 2,000-person town about 40 miles east of Syracuse.
“While there was this focused corridor of convergent enhanced EF1 tornado damage, other scattered tree damage could be found throughout the area associated with damaging winds up to 70 mph from the line of severe storms,” NWS meteorologists wrote.
The tornado uprooted a giant maple tree, about 3 feet in diameter, which crushed the Bisson family home on Hoyland Ave., Syracuse.com reported. Emily and Kenni were on the first floor with their mother, Kayleigh, who survived the storm.
The girls attended Clinton Elementary School, which was closed on Monday but would resume normal operations on Tuesday.
“Together, we will support our students, staff and families through the days ahead and hold close the memory of those we have lost,” Clinton Central School District Superintendent Christopher Clancy wrote in a letter to the community.
