By JOEY CAPPELLETTI, ED WHITE and SEAN MURPHY (Associated Press)
PAVILION TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) — At least eight tornadoes have touched down in Ohio, and three in Michigan as severe storms swept through the central U.S. late Tuesday and early Wednesday. One man in Tennessee died when a tree fell onto the vehicle he was in.
The storm that passed through northeastern Tennessee brought strong winds that knocked down powerlines and trees. Claiborne County Sheriff Bob Brooks said a 22-year-old man was in a car hit by one of the trees.
The National Weather Service reports confirmed tornadoes touched down on Tuesday in Ohio, including five in Warren County in the state’s southwest region. The confirmations came on Wednesday after crews surveyed the damage caused by the strong storms, which included hail and heavy rains and caused power outages for thousands of customers.
Weather service meteorologist in Michigan, Nathan Jeruzal, said the tornadoes there touched down one each in Kalamazoo, Cass and Branch counties — all in the southwestern part of the state.
Kalamazoo County’s Portage area was hit hard as a FedEx facility was torn apart and more than a dozen mobile homes were destroyed.
Tornadoes were first reported after dark on Tuesday in parts of Michigan, Indiana and Ohio, while portions of Illinois, Kentucky and Missouri were also under a tornado watch, according to the National Weather Service. The storms came a day after a deadly twister ripped through an Oklahoma town.
Samantha Smith held a box Wednesday afternoon as she left her mother’s partially wrecked home in Michigan’s Pavilion Township, about 137 miles (220 kilometers) west of Detroit. Inside the box were her grandmother’s ashes. Finding the most cherished of items gave Smith a rare moment of relief amid the storm’s devastation.
“Finding this box is the best thing that’s happened to me these past 24 hours,” she said. “The main thing we were all worried about was my grandma’s ashes.”
Her parents and brother were injured during the storm. Her brother suffered a broken pelvis and broken back, but he and other victims all survived, Smith added.
“I have thanked God probably a billion times since this happened yesterday,” she said. “My kids are healthy and good. We just gotta make back up what we lost.”
In southern Indiana, the National Weather Service confirmed a tornado with a preliminary EF-0 rating and 85 mph (137 kph) winds touched down early Wednesday, damaging homes in a subdivision north of the city of Sellersburg, located about 12 miles (19 kilometers) north of Louisville, Kentucky.
The Clark County Emergency Management Agency said the storm damaged 24 structures.
Candice Holmes, a resident of the Lewis & Clark subdivision north of Sellersburg, said she, her husband and son sought shelter in their bathroom when they heard the approaching storm and “the wind just picked up all at once.”
“My husband and my son stepped outside, opened the door and they slammed the door and ran back to the bathroom. And they held the bathroom door shut, as it came through,” Holmes told WDRB-TV. “It was over as soon as it started, but it was definitely a scary moment. And I’m glad we’re alive.”
Besides the five tornadoes in Warren County, there were also confirmed tornadoes in the western part of Ohio, in Greenville in Darke County, west of Coldwater in Mercer County, and west of New Knoxville in Auglaize County. The weather service is still examining areas of Franklin and Butler counties to see if tornadoes hit there.
A team from the weather service confirmed that just outside of Pittsburgh, a brief tornado with maximum winds of 105 mph (169 kph) flipped over a trailer and broke more than a dozen trees early Wednesday in Findlay Township, Pennsylvania.
Large hail, about the size of baseballs, was reported on Wednesday in areas just southwest of St. Louis, Missouri. Heavy rain caused sudden flooding and at least one water rescue near Sullivan, a town that had been hit by a small tornado just two days earlier, causing damage to a bar and the high school. Destructive hail was also reported in the Kansas City area.
Radar showed that Hancock County, West Virginia, and Jefferson County, Ohio, were hit by tornadoes, but assessment teams will need to evaluate the damage to determine their rating, said Craven.
Hancock County Schools in West Virginia shut down on Wednesday due to “extensive overnight weather issues” in the county. News reports indicated there were damaged buildings and power outages.
Another National Weather Service team was on their way to Hot Springs, Arkansas, to investigate the damage and assess the strength of a tornado that struck early Wednesday morning, according to forecaster Tabitha Clarke.
The tornado caused damage to some homes, knocked over trees, and brought down power lines. There were no immediate reports of injuries from the tornado, as per the state Division of Emergency Management.
In Portage, Michigan, around 50 people were temporarily trapped inside a damaged FedEx facility due to fallen power lines. More than a dozen homes were destroyed in a mobile home park in adjacent Pavilion Township and 16 people were injured, as reported by Kalamazoo County Sheriff Richard Fuller.
“We found homes in the roadway,” Fuller said late Tuesday. “We found homes in neighbors’ homes. We found large trees in homes.”
Over 20,000 people were left without power.
“We’re looking at homes throughout this community that are totally gone, they’ve been demolished,” Fuller said in the light of day at Pavilion Estates mobile home park.
A residence where seven people were living “is totally on its top,” he said. “They were able to self-rescue and get somewhere safe and came back today.”
Travis Wycoff went out on Tuesday night after seeing on radar that a tornado had touched down in the Portage area. About five minutes later, he came upon the aftermath.
“There were a lot of people running through the streets trying to find people and their pets,” Wycoff said. “It was just a lot of chaos.”
Wycoff said he assisted an elderly couple out of their partially collapsed home and also liberated a service dog from a home whose owner was at work.
More than 30,000 customers were without power in Michigan early Wednesday, and an additional 10,000 in Ohio, according to PowerOutage.us.
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer declared a state of emergency for four counties.
The storms on Tuesday happened after heavy rain, strong winds, hail, and twisters hit parts of the central United States the day before. Both the Plains and Midwest have experienced tornadoes this spring. Tornadoes have been hitting the Midwest and the South is expected to have bad weather for the rest of the week, including in Indianapolis, Memphis, Nashville, St. Louis, and Cincinnati — cities with over 21 million people. It should be clear over the weekend..
The whole week will be stormy in the U.S. The Midwest and the South will get the worst of the bad weather through the rest of the week, including in Indianapolis, Memphis, Nashville, St. Louis, and Cincinnati — cities where more than 21 million people live. It should be clear over the weekend.
A deadly tornado in Oklahoma tore through the 1,000-person town of Barnsdale on Monday night. At least one person was killed, and another was missing. Dozens of homes were destroyed.
It was the second tornado to hit Barnsdall in five weeks — a twister on April 1 with maximum wind speeds of 90 to 100 mph (145 to 161 kph) damaged homes and blew down trees and power poles.
Areas in Oklahoma, including Sulphur and Holdenville, are still recovering from a tornado that killed four and left thousands without power late last month.
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