During a week of severe storms across the country, Northern New Jersey was also hit with a tornado on Tuesday, May 28 that caused trees to fall and mass power outages. Sussex, Morris, and Essex counties received the most damage and severe weather conditions out of all of NJ.

Although WHHS students did not experience the tornado itself, many received an emergency tornado warning alert.

“I didn’t even know we could have tornadoes in New Jersey until I got the alert,” remarked Sophomore Jack Ziegler.

Because the tornado was so close to home, many WHHS students had family nearby enduring the conditions.

“My cousins live up in Morris county and they had to go down and hide in their basement,” said Sophomore Ryan Dillon. “They said when they came out a tree fell right by the front of their house.”

The damage from the tornado was so severe, that schools even had to be shut down. According to northjersey.com, Lenape Valley Regional High School was closed after the multiple trees and wires fell onto the school’s property.