Tornado kills 3 in upstate NY, including twin 6-year-old girls

Joseph Wilkinson, New York Daily News on Jun 23, 2025

By clicking submit, I authorize Arcamax and its affiliates to: (1) use, sell, and share my information for marketing purposes, including cross-context behavioral advertising, as described in our Privacy Policy , (2) add to information that I provide with other information like interests inferred from web page views, or data lawfully obtained from data brokers, such as past purchase or location data, or publicly available data, (3) contact me or enable others to contact me by email or other means with offers for different types of goods and services, and (4) retain my information while I am engaging with marketing messages that I receive and for a reasonable amount of time thereafter. I understand I can opt out at any time through an email that I receive, or by clicking here

NEW YORK — Three people, including two 6-year-old girls, were killed when a tornado ripped through a small town in upstate New York, authorities said Sunday.

Twin sisters Emily and Kenni Bisson were killed when a tree crushed their home in Clark Mills, the Oneida County sheriff’s office said in a Facebook post. Shelly Johnson, 50, was also killed when a tree struck her home less than a mile away.

An EF1 tornado with maximum speeds of 105 mph touched down in Clark Mills just before 4 a.m. Sunday, according to the National Weather Service. The twister was on the ground for about five minutes and ripped through the 2,000-person town about 40 miles east of Syracuse.

“While there was this focused corridor of convergent enhanced EF1 tornado damage, other scattered tree damage could be found throughout the area associated with damaging winds up to 70 mph from the line of severe storms,” NWS meteorologists wrote.

The tornado uprooted a giant maple tree, about 3 feet in diameter, which crushed the Bisson family home on Hoyland Ave., Syracuse.com reported. Emily and Kenni were on the first floor with their mother, Kayleigh, who survived the storm.

The girls attended Clinton Elementary School, which was closed on Monday but would resume normal operations on Tuesday.

“Together, we will support our students, staff and families through the days ahead and hold close the memory of those we have lost,” Clinton Central School District Superintendent Christopher Clancy wrote in a letter to the community.