COLERAIN – Damage from Saturday’s tornadoes in Bertie County will likely exceed $2.5 million.

Bertie Emergency Management Coordinator Rickey Freeman said teams from the county’s tax office spent most of the day Sunday doing damage estimates throughout the Askewville, Colerain and Elm Grove communities.

“Just the structure damage alone is along the lines of $2.5 million,” Freeman said. “That’s just houses and mobile homes. It does not include any barns, storage sheds or agriculture damage at this point. Of course, that is still a very preliminary estimate.”

Freeman said there were 87 total structures that were damaged. Of that number, 68 were completely destroyed, another 17 had major damage and two had minor damage. Three businesses were affected by the storm.

“We have had several storms in the past with major damage to a lot of homes, but this one is has the highest number of homes that have been destroyed,” Freeman said. “We already have 68 and it is likely that many of the 17 with major damage will not be able to be repaired.”

Freeman said even though the area of damage wasn’t as great as some of the other natural disasters, it was the total destruction of homes that caused such a high monetary damage estimate.