Why Tornado warnings work! A family of three never had a chance…a look back

The Madeline doll remains in the basement of the Rossi home, a haunting memory of the night of the “gray snow,” when a devastating weather event – perhaps unprecedented in the region – wrought tragedy in a Montgomery County housing development.

Late on the night of July 27, 1994, a potent tornado, with winds perhaps topping 200 m.p.h., tore through the “Hamlet” neighborhood in Limerick Township, killing Laura Petersen and her husband, Daniel Thompson III, both 28, and their 11-month-old daughter, Mikhela.

In the Philadelphia region, it was the strongest documented tornado in the period of record, and it swirled through Limerick, not far from the nuclear power plant, without warning.

In fact, the only warning Janice Rossi, who had just moved into the house on Victory Way, recalled was the wailing of her 4-month-old son, Jeremy, just before midnight. The crying woke her, and she planned to nurse him and put him back to sleep, but then she opened her eyes and couldn’t believe what she was seeing inside her house.