It may have been designed to thrive on wind, but a wind turbine at John Yeates Middle School proved no match for the storm that blew through North Suffolk on Thursday.

Eighth-grade science teacher Louis Garland discovered Friday morning that the turbine atop his portable classroom had been blown to pieces.

As part of a project dubbed SoWHy! (solar, wind, hydrogen), Garland had used more than $10,000 in grant money to purchase the turbine and solar panels. The hydrogen component is the next step.

The idea is to power the portable classroom with renewable energy.

“I turned the system off Wednesday for the summer,” Garland said at the school Friday. “Then we had the storm last night, so I came out to check on the turbine. Needless to say, there wasn’t a turbine.”

Garland asked maintenance workers cutting the grass to look out for pieces. They found one broken piece of a blade.

Then Garland found another blade, the tail section, and then another piece of blade.

The generator and the mount are still attached to the pole.

The turbine was designed to withstand winds up to 150 mph, Garland said. But Bill Sammler, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Wakefield, said the school would have sustained significant damage if the wind had reached that strength.

“Even if the instrument itself was rated that strong, was how it was attached to the building rated that same level?” Sammler asked.

Wind gusts of 41 mph per hour were recorded at Suffolk Executive Airport and 16 mph in Chesapeake. However, Sammler said that the thunderstorm, which also damaged hangars at Chesapeake Regional Airport, had localized winds that were stronger — up to 65 mph, he suggested.

As for rainfall, while recordings in Suffolk were under an inch, southern Portsmouth reportedly had almost two inches, Sammler said.

“The amounts were variable, and that’s pretty normal with thunderstorms,” he said.

The turbine and its installation cost nearly $1,000, Garland said. He said he plans to look into the warranty.

“We’re definitely replacing it,” he said. “All the equipment inside is set up for that wattage.”

According to Suffolk spokeswoman Diana Klink, police reported no flooded roadways; but there were two reports of trees down, one on Route 17, by Food Lion, and one in Holland.

Dominion Virginia Power reported 28 customers were without power, according to Klink, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Weather Radio All Hazards Norfolk transmitter in North Suffolk was damaged and put off the air.