Staff report

Staff report

NILES

Policeman Bernie Profato, one of the first people on the scene moments after the 1985 tornado ripped through Niles, killing nine people in the city, can speak as few others can of how to survive one of nature’s most deadly storms.

“The No. 1 thing I learned is to get out of the car,” Profato said of the advice given by tornado-safety experts. “When they warn you to get out of the car, get out of the car.”

Experts say getting into a ditch or other low-lying area is safer than staying in a car when a tornado is approaching.

Profato was off duty, driving south toward Niles on state Route 46 when he spotted the storm passing through the city. After going home to check on his family, he headed toward the U.S. Route 422-Vienna Road intersection near the former Top of the Strip roller rink and Niles Park Plaza.

That intersection turned out to be the site of seven of the storm’s 12 Trumbull County fatalities.

By that time, 7 p.m. on a Friday evening, the powerful storm had already torn through Newton Falls on its easterly march through the lower half of Trumbull County. The storm’s 300-mph winds traveling at 35 to 60 mph wrecked Woodglen Avenue and Cynthia Street in Niles.

The devastation was shocking, but Profato and others went to work to locate the missing, dead and injured.

It turns out all seven of the people killed were found within a small area in and behind the Niles Park Plaza, even though six of the seven were caught up in the tornado from two cars and a house on the other side of the plaza.

Evelyn Simmons, 42, and her daughter, Denise Mazza, 21, both of Girard, were killed after the tornado lifted them up while traveling in their car on Route 422 near the plaza.

Likewise, the tornado killed Niles schoolteacher Elaine Italiano, 39, of Youngstown, while she and her husband, Joe, were traveling in a car nearby. Joe, also a teacher, survived.

At a house across the street from the plaza, Ernest Miller, 87, his wife Anna Miller, 79, and Anna Miller’s sister, Margaret Palkovich, 69, of Belmont County, were picked up by the tornado and later found dead.

Linda McMahon, 27, of Austintown, died in a store inside the plaza, which was among three commercial buildings close together that were leveled by the storm.

Experts say that the basement or storm cellar is the best part of a house to go during a tornado. For houses with no basement, the smallest room, closet or hallway in the middle of the house on the lowest level possible is best.

For Millers and Palkovich, it was clear they had not made it to the basement, Profato said, adding that one reason might have been that one of the three was bedridden.

“I know they didn’t go into the lowest part of the house,” Profato said, adding that it appeared to him that the three were probably close together in the house because of the way he and other rescuers found their bodies within a few feet of one another behind the plaza.

In the case of Helen Thomas, 84, of Niles, who died inside a Convenient Food Mart a mile west of the plaza near Niles Union Cemetery, no basement was available, Profato said.

The ninth person who died in Niles was Emma Yannucci, 67, who suffered a heart attack while the tornado was destroying her home on Cynthia Street.

Of course, people can only take cover if they know that a tornado is coming or if one is likely to be heading their way.

Trumbull County had no countywide warning sirens in 1985 as it does today.

Niles takes special care to ensure that its sirens are working, Profato said, with a police officer standing by each siren during siren tests to make sure it functions.

When those test sirens go off, they serve as a reminder to anyone who lived through the famous 1985 twister, Profato said.

“That siren brings back memories of that terrible tornado, and people are going to run for safety when they hear it,” he said.

Despite the rarity of tornadoes in Northeast Ohio, the National Weather Service was keenly aware of the potential for tornadoes May 31, 1985, and had issued a tornado watch for Trumbull County by 4:25 p.m. and a severe thunderstorm warning by 4:45 p.m.

Warnings were renewed throughout the evening.

Bill Coneaux, meteorologist in charge of the National Weather Service office in Cleveland, was a meteorologist in the Pittsburgh office who worked the day shift May 31, 1985.

Coneaux, who completed his shift that day at about 4 p.m., said the tornadoes still rank up there among the most unusual storms he’s ever seen. “I would put it in a special category,” he said.

For one thing, the tornado that tore through Trumbull County and continued its destruction into Wheatland, Pa., in Mercer County, was classified later as an F5, the highest level, capable of internal winds of 300 mph. Of the 21 tornadoes that hit Eastern Ohio and Western Pennsylvania that night, several others were rated F4.

“To have F4 and F5 storms in this area [eastern Ohio and Western Pennsylvania] is pretty rare,” Coneaux said.

The first Trumbull County tornado hit Mesopotamia Township at about 5 p.m. The second one hit Newton Falls at 6:38 p.m. and ran its course through Wheatland a half-hour later.

Though conditions were favorable for tornadoes that afternoon, none was evident until around 5 p.m.

“That day always resonates with me — that ‘boom.’ It didn’t take long for them to do a whole lot of damage,” Coneaux said. “It took a while for all the ingredients to come together, and when they did, it grew quickly.”

Weather-watching technology improved significantly in the late 1980s with the advent of Doppler radar, which allows weather watchers to see inside of a storm, but it still can’t predict where a tornado will occur, Coneaux said.

Linda Beil, director of the Trumbull County Emergency Management Agency, said Trumbull County has 74 warning sirens today that are tested the first Saturday of each month at noon. The sirens sound for three minutes, every seven minutes, during the duration of a tornado warning.

Also significant, through money provided by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in recent years, EMA has purchased portable radios in use by police and fire officials throughout the county, Beil said.

Future grant money will be used to purchase additional radios for road department workers.

With the new radios, all emergency responders can communicate with one another on the same radio frequency, Biel said, which enables them to work better together after an emergency.