Tornado Warning

The Hagerstown Community College volleyball team had a long night on Friday for two reasons. First, a tornado warning caused a 30-minute delay near the end of the second game and forced the evacuation of the HCC Athletic Complex's main gymnasium. Players and fans waited the delay out in the locker-room area. Then, the College of Southern Maryland pushed the Hawks to the limit before HCC pulled out a 30-18, 23-30, 20-30, 30-26, 15-7 victory in the Maryland JuCo Conference. Sophomore outside hitter Megan Miller, a Williamsport graduate, helped the Hawks (10-1, 3-0)

By BRENDAN KIRBY Staff Writer Despite a tornado warning issued for the western section of Washington County, the area escaped Wednesday night's storm with little damage. "Nothing to get too excited about," said Mike Shiffler, a Washington County emergency services dispatcher. Brian Smith, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service, said radar showed that a storm just east of Hancock might have been accompanied by a tornado. But he said late Wednesday that there was no evidence that a funnel cloud had touched down.

WASHINGTON COUNTY tarar@herald-mail.com A brief thunderstorm that rolled through Washington County late Wednesday afternoon left behind cooler temperatures that are expected to last over the next several days, according to the National Weather Service. The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch until 10 p.m. Wednesday. At about 4:30 p.m., the National Weather Service reported a tornado developing two miles southwest of Hagerstown, prompting a tornado warning for the county until 5 p.m. The tornado never materialized and the warning expired.

RANSON, W.VA. -- Limbs were tossed like spears into the side of a church off 13th Avenue in Ranson. The surge of wind and rain - possibly a "weak tornado" - left shards of glass and other debris scattered on pews inside the Church of Christ at Ranson on Chapel Drive Wednesday afternoon. At The Home Depot along the Charles Town Bypass, winds lifted a structure used to store shopping carts in the parking lot and sent it crashing into Elba Carr's Kia Sorrento. Customers looked out the large glass windows at the front of the store as black and gray skies pounded the building with wind and rain, said Carr, the store's operations manager.

CHAMBERSBURG, Pa. - The Cold War-era early-warning system in Franklin County, Pa., will be updated by the end of the year to give emergency personnel and citizens notice in times of natural or man-made disasters. Director of Emergency Services Jerry Flasher said parts of the existing early warning system were installed in the 1950s and not much has been done to it since the 1960s. "Since that time, the systems have become antiquated in terms of their technology," Flasher said.

o For updated weather forecasts, go to The Herald-Mail Accuweather TRI-STATE -- Severe storms passing through Franklin County, Pa., Wednesday afternoon wiped out dozens of trees and flattened a pavilion in the community of Lemasters, Pa., according to residents and emergency services officials. In Chambersburg, Pa., about 15 people living in apartments above a jewelry store on South Main Street were evacuated when a storm damaged the building's roof, said Susan Dutko, Franklin County's emergency management coordinator.

Although rain from a fast-moving, powerful storm briefly pounded Washington County Monday, Frederick County, Md., was harder hit. In Frederick County, a child was swept away by high water and there were reports of what appeared to be a small tornado. According to the I4 Weather Web site, managed by Hagerstown weather observer Greg Keefer, 1.59 inches of rain fell in Hagerstown Monday between 4 and 6 p.m. Most of the precipitation, 1.27 inches, fell during a heavy downpour that started just after 5 p.m. Winds did not top 21 mph during those hours, according to the site.

Tracey Brown waited out the tornado in the parking lot of Valley Mall Tuesday night when the door to her Jeep Grand Cherokee wouldn't open because of the wind and heavy rain. "I fastened my seat belt. I just scooted down, scooted all the way down and prayed to God," she said. Brown, 42, heard a popping noise and looked back to see wind had broken her rear window. When she got back to her house at 1125 Beechwood Drive, there were trees on top of her two-story house, the back porch roof was detached and her porch furniture was strewn everywhere.

The Maryland District 1 10-11 tournament was a whirlwind to the very end for West End. Only a tornado could match the way West End notched its three-game sweep in the four-team tournament to win the title. And it almost got that, too. West End scored four runs in the first and then settled in behind the pitching of Will Grove to knock off Clear Spring 8-2 on Friday in a game that was shortened to 5 2/3 innings because of a tornado warning that was issued for Washington County.

Tornado warnings had area residents taking cover Thursday evening as a train of severe thunderstorms rumbled through the Tri-State area, causing power outages and flash flooding. And today could prove just as scary, with more thunderstorms, some potentially severe, forecast to come this way, a National Weather Service spokesman said. No twisters were reported to have touched down Thursday, but in Franklin and Fulton counties (Pa.), a tornado warning remained in effect until about 7 p.m., and a tornado watch remained in effect until 10 p.m., the National Weather Service said.