TURIN, N.Y. (WWTI) — A nightmare became a reality for the South Lewis community Monday night.

This was when an EF3 tornado ripped through the area. According to the National Weather Service, the storm reached wind speeds of 140 miles per hour and traveled 16 miles.

The Village of Turin fell victim to the most significant damage, including the West Wind Motel and Snow Ridge Ski Resort.

At Snow Ridge, the storm snapped numerous hardwood trees with fell on chair lift metal cables and chair lift structures.

“When we first were able to see the damage the next morning, it was pretty obvious that this was a very concentrated storm,” Snow Ridge General Manager Nick Mir said. “When we got up to the hill to see, you could see trees that were falling in all directions, not just in one direction. So it’s pretty obvious there was a spinning motion coming through there.”

Falling trees knocked all of Snow Ridge’s chairlifts and its T-bar off their wheels. One of the resort’s snow grooming vehicles was also trampled by a massive tree, which will now have to be replaced.

Mir said this won’t be an easy cleanup because many of the trees are hazardous and there are likely thousands of pounds of pressure on the chair lift cables.

“[That] is going to be one of the most difficult parts of removing those trees,” he explained. “We’ll need real professionals to deal with that kind of danger.”

But now it’s a race against time to try and prepare the ridge for the upcoming winter sports season.

“This comes literally about a week before we start our typical fall maintenance on the chairlifts,” Mir said. “So now that is going to be knocked back pretty dramatically. We’re feeling good about having operations this winter. What capacity that’s going to be in is yet to be seen.”

Because Mir added, Snow Ridge will need a lot of resources to clean up the mess.

“The costs are going to be very high,” he said. “So we don’t really know the full extent of the damage with the lifts. But that’s where we’re going to start, will be removing the trees from those and kind of assessing from there to see what happens.”

Adding, “We knew it was a strong one, but we didn’t realize it was this big.”

The storm on August 7, 2023, was the first EF3-rated tornado in New York State since May 2014.