(WHSV) -While tornadoes aren’t very common in our area.. They do happen. The old myths that the mountains protect us, are completely false.

These are tornado tracks in our viewing area going back to 1950, and we have have several documented tornadoes locally going back to the 1800s.

Tornadoes, they happen from time to time in our area. In fact in the last four years we’ve had three tornadoes. They can produce a lot of tree and structure damage. While you can’t entirely proof your house from trees. There are some things you can do to limit chances of damage.

Howard Ewing, owner of H & C tree service says, “Any limbs hanging over your house or anything, you need to get those things immediately because I’ll tell you, there’s a big chance of the wind coming down and we’ve seen it crush roofs and put holes in them and stuff like that. Then, by then it’s too late and you got to pay your insurance company.”

Ewing says it’s a good idea to inspect your trees to prevent any dead trees from causing problems. “You want to look for any kind of damage to around the tree, looking for ants, any signs of ants or something getting into the tree and there’s a lot of mold going around too.”

If you are concerned about a tree and need to cut it down, Ewing says don’t try it yourself.

**If you have photos or a story from a past local tornado, we’d love to hear about it. Weather history is important and it’s valuable to keep those records. You can reach out to Chief Meteorologist Aubrey Urbanowicz at aubrey.urbanowicz@whsv.com

“It’s really not a good thing to try to do it yourself, I mean unless you’re really a professional because there’s a lot of stuff involved with it.”

With a tornado, debris can come from any direction. Once it’s severe weather season, professionals will start to get really busy.

“Usually between March and October, we are slammed. But it just depends on what’s going on at the time of the year, stuff like that. But that’s when a lot of people like I said make that decision to trim these trees and get them done before anything does happen.”

LOCAL TORNADOES

For more on past local tornadoes, click here:

Historical local tornadoes

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