Residents describe tornadoes' path of destruction

WELD COUNTY - Much of the devastation by the tornadoes was in the town of Windsor where many homes were severely damaged.

The town is littered with wreckage of roofs, beaten cars and torn up trees after the tornado hit around lunchtime on Thursday.

The tornado that hit Windsor was just one of several that swept across northern Colorado and part of Wyoming. One person was killed in Greeley from a tornado that hit there. (Click here to read more details.)

Kurt Hinkle, a reporter for the Windsor Beacon, talked to 9NEWS just after the tornado hit.

"The town is devastated. I've never seen anything like it," said Hinkle. "People are out of their homes. Some homes are halfway torn out. It's terrifying for some of these people."

One of the damaged homes in Windsor belongs to Tricia Barger.

"Our house is destroyed," she said. "Not totally destroyed, but it's got a lot of damage."

Barger's 10-year-old daughter Sarah was in school when the tornado went trough the town.

"On the intercom the principal said to do a tornado drill," said Sarah Barger. "We didn't hear any sirens."

Sarah Barger says she heard that her friend's house was damaged and was worried her house was too because he only lives a few blocks away.

"It was very scary," she said.

Dylan Tufts, a first grader, told 9NEWS he was also very scared during the tornado. He says all the students were ushered into the hallways and told to cover their faces.

Thursday was supposed to be their last day of school.

His mother, Linda, said the students had just gone through a practice drill and they first thought it was another drill.

Dora Bradley, another Windsor resident, was working in a convenience story on the west side of town when the tornado hit. When 9NEWS talked to her at 2:20 p.m., she was without power and it was raining and hailing again in her town.

She says the tornado cut right through the middle of the town.

"It came right down the middle of Windsor and it hopped through and it demolished houses... in the middle of Windsor," said Bradley.

She says the storm started first with rain and then with golf ball sized hail.

"When we had the golf ball hail, it went on for about 20 minutes. That's the longest I've seen it," said Bradley.

Bradley says she did not hear any sirens before the tornado touched down.

"We just had a lot of rain and then the hail and then it started blowing sideways instead of hitting the ground. It was going sideways then you knew something was out there," she said.

Roger Stewart was huddled in his basement stairwell when the tornado struck his house just north of Windsor.

"I no sooner hit the bottom the stairs when things started blowing around. We're just glad to be OK. We've heard stories already that some people aren't," he told 9NEWS.

When Stewart was able to go back upstairs to look at the damage he was surprised to see his roof was still there.

There was also a two-by-four embedded into the wall of an upstairs bedroom. A large piece of glass was also in his living room wall.

"That shows the force of this thing," he said.

Linda Santora was in Gilcrest when one of the tornadoes hit there.

"It started out with lightning, then rain and pea-sized hail," said Santora. "I was taking pictures and a very large cloud forming that was almost touching the ground. It was going in a circular motion and that's when I made my exit into the basement."

"We've had furniture that was picked up off the deck and flung across the yard," said Santora.

Stephanie Blanton was in West Greeley when one of the tornadoes came through.

"I looked out the window and I saw this huge black cloud right across Highway 34 and I saw it started to spin at the bottom and I called my son and told him we needed to run to the basement," said Blanton. "We got our dogs and went down to the basement."

Jody Trainer was in the Longmont area when she had to seek shelter as the tornadoes started to touch down.

"It's very nasty, it looks like there's possibly a funnel cloud forming we've got dime sized hail. We had to pull underneath a bank ATM to protect us from the weather," she said.