Glass blown out, buildings damaged at Riverside shopping center after tornado

RIVERSIDE — People in Riverside have a lot of work to do after a tornado ripped through their town.

One of the areas hit was the Airway Shopping Center.

A specialty tea shop had its windows blown out and next door Big Lots had damage to its ceiling.

Workers said they were shocked when they drove up Wednesday morning.

“Oh boy! It’s going to be a busy day,” Peggy Henthorn, property manager for the shopping center, said she thought to herself.

She had an army of contractors, calling even more after she heard it might be a tornado that hit.

“There was nobody in the stores at the time, everybody is safe, most of it is storefront glass that got broken,” Henthorn said.

David Wirick wasn’t as fortunate as the shopping center.

He lives around the corner on Bayside Drive and the storm toppled a tree right on the corner of his home causing major damage.

“I thought it was further up in the house because of all the glass breaking and everything, the wind coming through,” he said.

Wirick said he and his wife went through a tornado in Middletown in the 1980′s.

The NWS confirmed the tornado that hit the area was an EF1.

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