Tornado damages Vet School buildings

Although the recent tornado that devastated Limerick Township never came near to campus, the University still did not escape damage from the storm. The New Bolton Center, the rural campus of the School of Veterinary Medicine located in Kennett Square, suffered severe tornado damage on the night of the tornado, July 27. The six hundred acre animal facility is used to raise feedstock for animals. Many senior Veterinary School students train at the adjacent Widener Hospital, one mile from the Center. The tornado destroyed a large barn, the main equipment shed, three animal barns, the roof of a house and several other equipment pieces, according to Associate Dean and Hospital Director Bruce Rappaport. In addition, the clinic was forced to operate under emergency power until the afternoon following the tornado. Little could have been done to avoid the damage, Rappaport said. He added that no New Bolton Center employees or animals were hurt. After evaluation of the damaged buildings by structural engineers, it was determined that "none of the destroyed buildings had been structurally unsafe," Rappaport said. The University is still assessing the exact cost of all the damages. "While we're still working on exact figures, [the cost of damage] looks to be fairly extensive," said Andrea Phillips, property administrator of the Department of Risk Management. The Center should not suffer any financial losses because "the loss was insured by the University's insurance carrier," Rappaport said. In addition, "the Center has very good relations with neighboring farms, and they have been able to borrow a lot of needed equipment," said Helen Weeks, director of communications at the School of Veterinary Medicine. "We are just about done cleaning, but it will take time to rebuild the buildings," Rappaport said. Weeks said she worried that a similar storm could occur in the future. "That area is a corridor for tornado activity," she said. "We're lucky that the Center only suffered property damage, and that no lives were lost. "There's no way you can even warn anyone about these tornadoes," she added. Though the Limerick nuclear plant near the Center is equipped with sirens which could warn everyone about an impending tornado, they are only be used "in the case of a nuclear emergency," said Weeks.