by Owner Michael Uvanni describes historic downtown area hit by winds exceeding 130 mph like a ‘war zone’
ROME, N.Y. — A tornado that tore through this town of just over 32,000 people earlier this week did major damage to many downtown-area businesses, including renowned interior design firm Michael J. Uvanni Interiors.
Owner and founder Michael J. Uvanni said the tornado and accompanying winds of 135 mph struck the area around 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, damaging and/or destroying a number of local businesses, vehicles and historical properties, including two churches that had entire steeples torn off.
“If I had two words to describe it, it would be ‘war zone,’” Uvanni told Home News Now. “It was like a train going through. … The damage was so severe, it is hard to describe unless you were walking through it.”
Fortunately, no one was at Uvanni’s business at the time the tornado struck as team members left early, having received severe weather warnings.
But like other area properties, his business at 209 W. Court St. was severely damaged. While he did not yet have a dollar estimate, he said there was damage to the exterior and interior of the building, as well as product.
The winds, he said, tore through heavy double doors at the back of the building, sweeping through an area with furniture samples as well as lighting and other fixtures.
“It just went through there like a bat out of hell,” he said, noting that the doors the winds blew through are heavy and not the easiest to open in normal circumstances. “You had to push them really hard — you just couldn’t turn the key and open them. There was no way to do that.”
He said that rooftops from two neighboring buildings also were blown off, parts of which landed on the roof of his building. He said the winds also wrecked the roof on a front porch of his building, one of two locations he owns and operates in the area. The second, about a mile away, was not impacted.
But the winds in Rome were so fierce they took out entire trees, along with air conditioning units, blowing them out into yards, streets and buildings, or in Uvanni’s case, onto the porch of his showroom.
Power in the Rome area also has been out since the incident and is not expected to return until early next week. Until then, Uvanni continues to assess the damage with the help of adjusters, which he said were already deluged assessing damage on other nearby properties.
At first, Uvanni, 74, said he felt like giving up, having not seen anything like this happen to his business since it got started around 1979.
“In the beginning, you are just in shock,” he said, of initially seeing the damage to his building and others in the historic area of downtown Rome. “I went through our building and couldn’t comprehend it. Your brain just shuts off. Then the next day when you come back to see it, you are sick. You can’t believe this could happen here.”
Another Rome, New York, furniture business, Joe Tahan’s Furniture, also suffered some relatively minor damage from the tornado. Located a couple of blocks away from the epicenter downtown, it had some damage to a section of its roof along with that particular side of the 40,000-square-foot building.
In addition, the retailer said, several Flexsteel upholstery groups had water damage. The store also was without power for about four days and not able to reopen until the following Saturday.
We lucked out,” said Bobby Klockowski, store manager. “It could have been worse.”
He noted that the company’s other two locations in Utica and New Hartford, New York, also were unscathed as they are about 12-15 miles away from Rome.
