One year ago, an EF-3 tornado destroyed the Pfizer plant in Nash County

One year ago, a destructive EF-3 tornado hit North Carolina north of Rocky Mount.

• The tornado touched down on July 19, 2023, around 12:30 p.m. in the Battleboro and Dortches communities in Nash County.
  • The tornado began as a thunderstorm warning in Edgecombe, Halifax and Nash counties.
  • Thunderstorm warnings were issued at 12:27 p.m., and the tornado warning was issued about five minutes later.
• An estimated 90 homes and buildings were damaged or destroyed, including the Pfizer plant.
• At least 16 people were injured by the tornado, with two people facing life-threatening injuries.
• Approximately 50,000 pallets of medicine were destroyed when the tornado hit Pfizer’s distribution and storage buildings.
• More than 100 vehicles and 75 hauling trucks were damaged at the plant.

This tornado was unexpected and happened very quickly.

The National Weather Service confirmed it was an EF-3 tornado with winds of up to 150 mph. An EF-3 tornado is the fourth strongest type of tornado on a scale of six – ranging from least violent (EF-0) to most violent (EF-5).

It is the second-ever EF-3 tornado to hit North Carolina in the month of July.

The tornado may have covered a path as long as 20 miles, according to WRAL meteorologists. The debris wall of the tornado was about 2 miles wide near Interstate 95 in Nash County.

At one point, more than 3,200 Rocky Mount electric customers were without power. Around 21 power poles were damaged in the area, according to Duke Energy.

Once the storm cleared, Sky 5 flew over damage in Nash County, where entire segments of trees and crops were destroyed in the tornado’s path. Some neighborhoods were so damaged that first responders could not get to them, according to the sheriff.

Major roads were closed in Nash County, including Interstate 95, N.C. Highway 43 and N.C. 48.

Michael Poythress, Deborah Moore and their dog took refuge during the tornado in the bathtub of their Puckett Mobile Home Park in Dortches.

“She got in bathroom next to the tub, started climbing in to it,” Poythress said. “I had my shoulder against the door, [I held] onto the dog with my left arm and (was) holding her shirttail with the other.”

The couple said while in the bathroom, the roof blew off, and they tumbled and rolled around in the rumble.

“She fell out of the tub, if I hadn’t held onto her, she would’ve been gone,” Poythress said. “She would have been in the tub.”

Marvin Hicks, a Pfizer forklift technician for the past nine years, was walking back to the shop when he received a WRAL weather alert on his phone.

He and his coworkers gathered in the hallway, and that’s when the tornado hit.

“The wind was strong and the power went out,” Hicks said. “We just sat there in the building as the tornado passed.”

Afterward, Hicks went outside and saw the damage. He said he had never experienced anything like it before, not even Hurricane Fran.

Hicks said that the part of the building that handles product stored and ready to be shipped was hit the hardest by the tornado.

“Just think how quick something like that can happen,” Hicks said. “A storm only lasted seconds but leaves months and months of repair. So it’s scary.”

Both directions of Interstate 95 were closed between Dortches and U.S. Highway 64 for hours because of trees that fell onto the roadway.

It was a chaotic scene on the interstate, with people driving in the median and some trying to drive in the opposite direction. Drivers described rain falling horizontal to the roadway.

“The trees started flying,” one driver told WRAL photojournalist John Payne. “The car started shaking … the back window blew out … we were in the eye of the tornado,” said another driver. A third driver described trees flying past her window.

The July 19, 2023, tornado was among the worst Nash County has ever seen.

In 1988, Nash County had an EF-4 tornado. The county has had two other F3 tornadoes using the old Fujita scale, which means they were stronger than an EF-3 tornado.

On April 16, 2011, 30 tornadoes touched down in North Carolina for the greatest one-day total on record for our state. Twenty-four North Carolinians lost their lives, including eight people in the WRAL viewing area, and hundreds more were injured.