Perilous Times and Climate Change
Ohio tornado kills 7, unleashed a "war zone" of destruction
By JOHN SEEWER and MEGHAN BARR (AP)
MILLBURY, Ohio — A tornado unleashed a "war zone" of destruction in
northwest Ohio, destroying dozens of homes and an emergency services
building as a line of storms killed at least seven people and
threatened to do more damage Sunday as it hit the Northeast.
Storms collapsed a movie-theater roof in Illinois and ripped siding off
a building at a Michigan nuclear plant, forcing a shutdown. But most of
the worst was reserved for a 100-yard-wide, 7-mile-long strip southeast
of Toledo now littered with wrecked vehicles, splintered wood and
family possessions.
The tornado ripped the roof and back wall off Lake High School's
gymnasium about 11 p.m. Saturday, several hours before the graduation
ceremony was supposed to begin there. The school board president said
one of the victims was the father of the class valedictorian.
Two buses were tossed on their sides and another was thrown about 50
yards, landing on its top near the high school's football field. More
than 10 hours later, its right turn signal was still blinking.
Lake Township Police Chief Mark Hummer flew over the damaged area and
said at least 50 homes were destroyed and another 50 severely damaged,
as well as six commercial buildings. The storm fell over an area of
farm fields and light industry, narrowly missing the heavily populated
suburbs on the southern edge of Toledo.
"It's a war zone," Hummer said. "It's pretty disheartening."
Rescue officials were still searching through homes Sunday and couldn't
say whether anyone else was missing, Lake Township Fire Chief Todd
Walters said.
The tornado turned a township police and emergency medical services
building into a mishmash of 2-by-4 framing and pink insulation. Hummer
was talking to a police dispatcher by phone when the storm hit.
"She started saying, 'The building is shaking,' and then another
dispatcher came on and said, 'The roof just blew off," he said.
The storm ripped off most of the building's back half and wrapped part
of the metal roof around a tree. At least six police vehicles — half
the township's fleet — were destroyed, and one car was tossed into the
spot where the building once stood.
The storm knocked out emergency services for a short time, and all the
emergency dispatchers and 911 operators had to be moved to a nearby
town.
"When the people who are supposed to help you are victims of the storm,
it does take you a minute to catch your breath," Hummer said.
Those killed included a person outside the police department and a
motorist, Hummer said. He said a young child and two other victims were
from nearby Millbury, a bedroom community of roughly 1,200 about 10
miles southeast of Toledo. Hummer said two other people died at
hospitals but he did not have details.
One of the victims was the father of Lake High School's valedictorian,
said Tim Krugh, president of the school district's board. Krugh said
the school has rescheduled graduation for Tuesday evening at a Toledo
community college.
Neighbors said the house of the valedictorian's family was destroyed,
and all that was left was a basement filled with water.
At least 17 people in the Toledo area were hospitalized, including two
adults and two children in critical condition, Mercy hospital system
spokeswoman Gloria Enk said.
In southeastern Michigan, severe storms and high winds ripped siding
off a building at the Fermi 2 nuclear plant, causing it to shut down
automatically, said Dan Smith, the public information officer for
Monroe County. Investigators were inspecting the nuclear plant on the
shore of Lake Erie on Sunday morning, and the plant was expected to go
back into operation, Smith said.
About 35,000 people were without power but it wasn't clear whether that
was directly related to the nuclear plant's shutdown or because of
damage to power lines in the area, Smith said.
Eleven people with minor injuries were taken to hospitals from Dundee,
Mich., where the weather service was looking into reports of a tornado
touching down.
Tornadoes also were reported in Illinois. More than a dozen people were
injured in Dwight, Ill., where about 40 mobile homes and 10 other homes
were destroyed, Illinois Emergency Management Agency spokeswoman Patti
Thompson said.
The roof of a movie theater collapsed in Elmwood, Ill., about 30 miles
west of Peoria. State Trooper Dustin Pierce said 150 to 200 people had
been inside, but they had been evacuated to the basement and no one was
hurt.
The storms left a trail of damaged homes in northern Indiana and a
tornado sighting was reported, but no one was injured. In eastern Iowa,
buildings were damaged and one person was hurt when a tornado touched
down in Maquoketa.
A cold front colliding with warm unstable air produced the storms that
struck Saturday night, meteorologist Marty Mullen of the National
Weather Service said, and that front was draped from New England south
through the mid-Atlantic region later Sunday. The storm was weakening
as it headed east.
The day after the Toledo-area tornado hit, residents were searching
fields looking for anything salvageable.
The storm destroyed Ronald Johns' house and barn and flung his
cast-iron bath tub into a wheat field, but his wife managed to find a
wristwatch, still working, amid the scattered bits of their rural home
near Millbury.
On Saturday night, Johns looked out the window and couldn't even see
the barn directly across the road. The chimney fell through the first
floor as soon as the retired couple made it to the basement, pinning
Johns with bricks until his wife, Jan, managed to free him.
Ronald Johns, 74, said they were lucky. "We didn't get down there five
seconds too fast," he said.
Truck driver Carl Gooden, 54, said he, his wife and his adult son were
sitting on the porch when they heard a roar and ran for the bathroom.
Wind tore off most of the home's roof and ripped open the north side of
house, exposing a bedroom and a closet where sweat shirts and dresses
were still on their hangers. In the front yard, a sliver of aluminum
siding from a neighbor's barn was wrapped around a teetering telephone
pole.
Gooden said his family lost two garages and five vehicles. The front
yard was littered with decades of memories: a Loretta Lynn album, a
porcelain lamp and a green golf bag were among the recognizable items.
"My heart sinks," Gooden said. "I worked a lifetime for all this."
But he wasn't about to go in to retrieve items such as his wife's
jewelry or his NASCAR collectibles. His home was knocked 5 feet off its
foundation and basement washer and dryer were all that was holding it
up.
"It's not worth dying for," he said.
Associated Press Writers Andrew Welsh-Huggins in Columbus, Ohio, Sophia
Tareen and Tammy Webber in Chicago, Charles Wilson in Indianapolis and
Randi Berris in Detroit contributed to this report.