NEW CANAAN -- The National Weather Service has confirmed that early Tuesday evening, a EF1 tornado with maximum winds of 100 miles per hour, touched down in New Canaan, including on Conrad Road, just north of the Merritt Parkway.
It happened in less than 10 minutes.
"I saw the sky get really dark and then I started to hear branches falling," said Samantha Ashley, a Conrad Road. resident.
Then, she heard debris peppering the roof.
"And then, I saw our little plastic Adirondack chairs on the porch just go flying," she said. "That’s when I just ran out of the family room ran to our basement."
She said she screamed heading down the stairs.
"But my mom was just sitting on the phone laughing at me and she’s like, 'Sam, it’s not that bad. Don’t worry about it'."
Miraculously, their house was untouched.
"As soon as we saw all of the trees down, I just felt so lucky that nothing hit the house," she said, with a smile.
But, one of their cars was not so fortunate.
"I think I was right to scream," Samantha Ashley said, with a chuckle. "I’m just surprised with how bad the storm was."
Her dad was waiting to catch the train home from work, in New York City, when he received a text from Samantha asking if he was okay.
"And, I said 'okay about what. And she said the storm and I said what storm," said Chase Ashley Samantha's father. "And, you know, there is no rain or anything going on in New York City."
When he arrived in New Canaan he knew something was up when he noticed many roads were closed. Then there was a tree blocking the driveway.
"I just put some boots on, changed my pants and put some gas in the generator, which is what I’ve got to do again now, because we're out of gas," he said, with a smile, Wednesday afternoon.
Just one mile away, in Darien, approximately a half-dozen utility poles were replaced on Hillsley Road. Less than three miles from this neighborhood, Scribner Avenue in Norwalk, was closed for utility pole work all day Wednesday.
And nearby on Fox Run Road, near Ponus Avenue, during the height of the storm, a tree came down on a vehicle, whose driver was unharmed.