Tornado Rips Historic City in Virginia; 2 Dead, 149 Hurt : Storm: Twister destroys Petersburg buildings that withstood Civil War. Two people are missing. Shopping center is hit.

A tornado charged through this historic city Friday, toppling buildings and killing at least two people in a shopping mall that witnesses said was sliced open. More than 140 people were injured.

The storm devastated this economically depressed city’s most precious quarter, a historic district known as Old Town Petersburg, which has several Civil War-era buildings that withstood Union troop barrages from 1864 to 1865.

Police Officer M. L. Clarke said “one large tornado” touched down at the Southpark shopping mall just outside the city limits in Colonial Heights. Doctors and hearses were summoned to a triage center in the mall parking lot.

The Virginia Department of Emergency Services confirmed that two people had been killed. Authorities in Colonial Heights said two other people were unaccounted for.

Authorities said at least 149 people were sent to area hospitals with various injuries, which included broken bones and head and neck problems.

The storm cut a swath through a Wal-Mart discount department store, from front to back.

Witness Mike Johnson said he was driving into the lot when “everything started collapsing.” He said he helped pull three victims from the rubble.

Gov. L. Douglas Wilder activated the National Guard before heading from the capital in Richmond by helicopter to survey the damage, said spokeswoman Lisa Katz. The Army said it sent at least three helicopters to help with evacuations.

Tornadoes are uncommon in Virginia, where the last one hit near Augusta Springs in the Shenandoah Valley in 1989, killing two people.

The storm interrupted a monthlong dry spell that included the hottest July on record in Virginia. No tornado warning was posted until 1:35 p.m., just after the first sightings in Colonial Heights. And that was too late for many to seek shelter, officials said.

As the twister crossed the James River to the north of Colonial Heights, it threw up a wall of wind and water that knocked over two tractor-trailers on the Interstate 295 bridge across the river, authorities said. A third truck collided with the first two, and two smaller trucks were flipped over by the wind. Five people were hurt in that incident, said state police Sgt. Robert A. Johnson.

The National Weather Service said it was not immediately clear if more than one tornado hit the area.

“We’ve had several reports of tornadoes, but I don’t know if they are the same one or several,” said meteorologist Peter Wolf of the National Weather Service in Richmond. Confirmation would have to wait until a survey team from Washington inspected the damage, he said.

“The Old Town district of Petersburg is for the most part destroyed,” said Brian Soule, a photographer for the Progress-Index newspaper. “There are some store fronts standing and a couple of buildings look for the most part flat. Old Town Station is leveled.”

City Manager Valerie Lemmie estimated damage in the city at $10 million.

Friday’s twister also hit a 15- to 20-block area of Hopewell, causing heavy damage to apartment buildings, said Bob Brown, the city’s emergency services coordinator.

He said 50 to 100 people were being evacuated to the Hopewell Community Center. He said he was not aware of any injuries.

“It’s taken a lot of roofs off, and a lot of trees are across apartments,” Brown said.

In Petersburg, South Side Station, an old train depot converted into a flea market, was leveled but no one was hurt, said Charles Patton, whose family owns the building. The flea market is open only on weekends.

“You think about the historical aspect of the building,” Patton said. “It’s lasted 150 years and all of a sudden, it’s gone in 10 seconds.”