By HAROLD GWIN

By HAROLD GWIN
VINDICATOR SHARON BUREAU
CLARK, Pa. -- "I looked out the back window and I knew what was going to happen," said Lisa Bordell of 34 Milton St., one of about 50 people displaced by a Sunday night storm that roared through this town of 630 people.
"The lights went out and the house started shaking. We just dove downstairs," a shaken Bordell said, explaining how she and her husband, Rich, and their daughter, Nicole, 9, safely rode out the storm.
"I saw it in 1985. I lived in Niles," said Bordell, who believes the storm was a tornado, just like the twisters that tore through Niles and other parts of eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania on the night of May 31, 1985.
Waves of tornado-spawning storms raced across the South and northern Ohio and Pennsylvania on Sunday, killing dozens, including five in northwestern Ohio.
Authorities weren't immediately able to tell if Sunday's storm was a tornado or just strong winds but said one man, Charles E. Templeton, 81, of 22 Milton St., died when the winds destroyed his house around 7:45 p.m.
Templeton's 85-year-old wife, Georgette, survived the destruction of their home and was listed in fair condition in Sharon Regional Health System this morning. She suffered blunt force trauma.
A Transfer firefighter who was with the crew that found the Templetons said Charles was atop debris at his home, but his wife was found in the remnants of their home, partially pinned by a refrigerator.
Authorities first said this morning that one person was missing. However, it turns out she was taken to an area hospital Sunday with unknown injuries, South Pymatuning Township officials said. They didn't know her name or other details.
Triage center
Dr. Sergio Segarra, emergency services director at Sharon Regional and physician coordinator at the command center, said all injured were brought to a triage center at Tara, A Country Inn, which is on the south shore of Shenango River Lake at Pa. Route 18. From there, the injured were taken by ambulance to different hospitals. Triage is the system of prioritizing medical assistance during an emergency.
Most of the damage was just east of Tara.
A total of 18 people were injured but most of them were treated for minor injuries at the scene.
Sharon Regional reported treating four injured people, all from Clark. The hospital wouldn't reveal their identities but said that, in addition to Mrs. Templeton, a husband and wife were treated and released, and a 52-year old man was transferred to St. Elizabeth Health System in Youngstown.
UPMC Horizon reported receiving one patient at its Greenville facility, a man who was treated for a hand injury, and one at its Farrell facility, a woman admitted overnight for observation. Both of those people are from Clark as well.
Damage
Clark-Jefferson Police Chief Jeff Lockard, who said he thought the town was hit by a tornado, said at least five houses were destroyed in the Milton and Nora street area and at least five or six others extensively damaged in the borough.
James Thompson, director of the Mercer County Emergency Management Agency, said this morning that he believed the damage was caused by a tornado.
Indeed, the scene in the South Pymatuning-Clark area is reminiscent of the 1985 tornadoes that blew through this area. There is a path of destruction about 300 yards wide starting in the Wynnwood Drive area of South Pymatuning Township west of Pa. Route 18, where the wind blew the roofs of numerous houses. Township officials said there were no injuries reported and noted that there was also damage on Thomason and Valley View roads.
The swath of damage extends east, across Route 18, and goes into the borough of Clark, where the wind flattened a number of houses and extensively damaged many others, tearing off roofs and siding and blowing down one barn. The storms damaged numerous vehicles, including a semi truck and its trailer, which were blown onto their sides.
Many trees were snapped off 20 to 30 feet above the ground. There was debris, downed power lines and piece of trees and shrubbery nearly everywhere.
Power outage
There were also downed trees and power lines reported in Hermitage, Farrell and Sharon, where the roof of the Standard Market on New Castle Avenue was blown off.
There were reports of heavy hail in the area moments before the storm hit.
The Pennsylvania Power Co. reported 4,500 customers lost service at the height of the storm and 3,000 of them were without power for most of the night.
Many streets had downed power poles in the Clark area, said power company spokesman Randy Coleman, who said that by 7 a.m. today power had been restored to all but about 220 customers, all in the Clark area.
Thompson set up a field command center in the parking lot at Tara, and inn owners James and Donna Winner temporarily opened the lower level of their business to displaced residents and members of their families who came to look for them.
Winner also owns the Radisson Hotel in Shenango Township and put up some of the displaced residents there for the night. Others left with family or friends. Reynolds Junior-Senior High School was opened as a temporary shelter by the American Red Cross but no one stayed there overnight.
Authorities initially said between 50 and 75 residents had to be evacuated from the area but later reduced that number to between 40 and 50.
Representatives of the National Weather Service were also expected to visit the site to determine whether the damage had been caused by a tornado.
Lockard said fire, police and other rescue personnel were initially hampered by downed power lines and by natural gas leaks from the destroyed homes but were eventually able to conduct three sweeps of the most damaged area of the borough and found no other victims.
They planned to do one more search using rescue dogs around 12:30 a.m. today and then shut down the scene for the night. No one would be allowed into the area until daylight, he said.
Bordell said she and her husband were in the process of putting two additions on their home. The windows and doors were blown out of the additions, the backyard swimming pool was blown away, the backyard trees were gone and a contractor's trailer parked in the driveway was flipped upside down, she said.
She had no time to assess structural damage to her home as firefighters came by and ordered everyone to leave.
Her husband ran three doors up the street to the home of his mother, Genevieve Bordell at 46 Milton St., to check on her.
She wasn't injured but her four-bay garage was blown three doors down the street, coming to rest in pieces in Bordell's back yard.
Clark Fire Chief Greg Sanford said nine fire departments and nearly as many police departments responded to the call for help. Numerous emergency medical service personnel also came to the scene, he said.
Salem damage
In northeastern Ohio, Salem was hard-hit by the storm, although no injuries resulted, officials report.
The fire department was called out three times between 7:37 p.m. and 8:35 p.m. Sunday.
One of the calls involved a tree coming down on the home of Tom Moran, 1518 Southeast Blvd.
A tree toppled into power lines on the 900 block of Jones Drive, and the home of Celia Brown, 225 W. Fifth St., was struck by lightning.
The lightning blew a hole in the house's wall near the porch, the fire department reported.
No fire resulted, however.