Virginia Beach tornado called textbook example of emergency response, one year later

The morning of April 30, 2023, in Virginia Beach was quiet.

Thousands of people were staying at the Oceanfront for Pharrell Williams’ Something in the Water music festival. Rainy weather had dominated the first day of the festivities, but the event was in full swing by Saturday, the second day. Pharrell and his friends dazzled the crowd at the beach, and many were ready for day three.

But, miles and miles away, things were already starting to go wrong. Low pressure was strengthening over South Carolina. According to the official report on the storm from the National Weather Service, the “environment changed rapidly” between 2 and 5 p.m. The conditions was “sufficient” for supercells, or rotating thunderstorms, throughout the day. However, instability in the weather increased significantly during the late afternoon before the arrival of the final round of thunderstorms.

By 6 p.m., festival organizers had canceled performances for the night. Emergency Management Coordinator Dave Topczynski said the decision was not taken lightly. Meteorologists were already on site for the festival, and many of the city’s resources were activated for the Oceanfront. Last year’s storm was his third tornado, but for many at the city, it would be their first.

“We had a really new team at the time, and a lot of new staff across the city, so we had talked a lot and trained a lot and exercised a lot,” Topczynski said. “(The tornado) was really the first big test of everybody and the new teams across the city. It went as well as any disaster can go. It really drove home a lot of the points for our new staff, but it really put the staff to the test and had everybody come together.”

The tornado formed over the eastern branch of Lynnhaven River in Virginia Beach. The twister progressed up River Road as an EF-1, passing by the Great Neck Recreation Center. It strengthened to an EF-2 as it moved into the Chelsea neighborhood, then became an EF-3 as it continued onto Haversham Close.

Peak winds reached 145 mph, according to the report. Cherise Newsome, senior communications specialist for Dominion Energy, said location played an important part in power recovery for residents in nearby neighborhoods.

There were about 2,900 customers who were without power for about two hours when the tornado hit on the evening of April 30. About 200 of them remained without power until the next morning. Power was completely restored by that afternoon, excluding homes that were deemed unsafe by the city because of extensive damage.

Because many of the lines in the neighborhood were underground, recovery of power was relatively simple, Newsome said.

“(With) the underground lines, we have technology now where we can redirect the flow of power and electricity, and having underground lines gives us that capability to do that with much more ease. You can’t with overhead lines. Even if there is an outage, there’s a looping system where you can reroute power, so that it flows a different way, and you can also reduce the number of customers who lose power.”

According to a February report from ConsumerAffairs, a customer review and consumer news platform, Virginia had six tornadoes in 2023. During those storms, more than $20 million in damage was reported, putting the state in the top 10 for expensive tornadoes. Using FEMA guidelines, the city of Virginia Beach estimated that the April 30 storm caused about $15.7 million in damage. Seven homes were destroyed, 24 received “major” damage, and 30 had “minor” damage.

Despite the damage, the storm skipped over large community resources, such as school buildings and recreation centers. Topczynski said the recovery efforts were textbook examples of a successful emergency response, and going forward, the city aims to improve beyond that for residents.

“At some point during the recovery, you look back and take a breath,” he said. “I’ve been on about a dozen disaster deployments across the country. It kind of strikes when you look back and you take a second to pause and reflect. It’s really easy to look at the job ahead of you, what you still have to do to recover, because it’s not easy. These homeowners still have to rebuild. There’s a lot there, but you take a minute and look back and just jot down some accomplishments to keep you grounded and not lose focus.”

Eliza Noe, eliza.noe@virginiamedia.com