NWS confirms tornado touched down in Scott County on Sunday

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WATE) — The National Weather Service has confirmed
an EF1 Tornado touched down in Scott County Sunday night.
The NWS service said the tornado hit at 6:10 p.m. in Helenwood TN, which
is four miles west of Huntsville, Tenn. The tornado has 95 mph winds and
was 200 yards wide.
“We are looking at the tree damage, the strength of the winds, if it was a tornado
which it was in this case where’s the start point, where’s the endpoint,
how wide was it,” Anthony Cavallucci with the National Weather Service
said.
The National Weather Service was trying to determine the exact path the
tornado took, however, the terrain is making it difficult to do just that.
“We are trying to figure out now where did it start and where did it end,”
Cavallucci said. “The terrain around here doesn’t make that very easy at all.
[It’s] very mountainous and there’s not a road that goes to every location, so
that is going to be the challenge. We may not know the specifics for many
weeks.”
On Tuesday, the National Weather Service released the path of the tornado.
“A non-continuous tornado path was surveyed in western Scott County
approximately 6.5 miles west southwest of Huntsville off Grassy Knob Road
and continuing across Silcox Ford
Road and then paralleling Helenwood Loop Road before dissipation at a
pond,” reads the survey summary from the National Weather Service.
Downed trees and debris can be seen in the wake of the tornado. It is unclear
how much damage was caused by the storm however no injuries have
been reported.
Rick Russ, a manager at a local mobile home park, said some of the residents
were in their homes when trees fell on top of them.
“This gentleman down here was in his bedroom,” Russ said. “He had gotten
up to go to the bathroom and as he was walking into the bathroom a huge,
large tree had fallen into his bed.”