Midwest storms: 3 tornadoes confirmed in Michigan, 1 man killed in Tennessee

PAVILION TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) — At least eight Tornadoes have made landfall in Ohio and three were confirmed in Michigan as severe storms swept across the central U.S. late Tuesday and early Wednesday, killing a man in Tennessee when a tree fell on a vehicle he was in.

The storm that raged across Northeast Tennessee brought strong winds that downed power lines and trees. Claiborne County Sheriff Bob Brooks said a 22-year-old man was in a car that was struck by one of the trees.

According to the National Weather Service, confirmed tornadoes touched down in Ohio on Tuesday, including five in Warren County in the southwestern part of the state. The confirmations came Wednesday after crews surveyed damage caused by the powerful storms, which included hail and heavy rains and knocked thousands of utility customers off power.

Michigan weather service meteorologist Nathan Jeruzal said the tornadoes there touched down one each in Kalamazoo, Cass and Branch counties – all in the southwestern part of the state.

The Portage area in Kalamazoo County was hit hard when 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 parts of Illinois, Kentucky and Missouri were also under a tornado watch, according to the National Weather Service. The storms came a day after a A deadly tornado ripped through an Oklahoma town.

Samantha Smith clutched a box Wednesday afternoon as she left her mother’s partially destroyed home in Michigan’s Pavilion Township, about 140 miles (220 kilometers) west of Detroit. Her grandmother’s ashes were in the box. The opportunity to recover the most valuable items gave Smith a rare moment of relief amid the storm’s devastation.

“Finding this box is the best thing that has happened to me in the last 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 back, but he and the other victims all survived, Smith added.

“I’ve probably thanked God a billion times since this happened yesterday,” she said. “My children are healthy and happy. We just have to make up for what we lost.”

In southern Indiana, the National Weather Service confirmed that a tornado with a preliminary EF-0 rating and winds of 85 mph (137 km/h) touched down early Wednesday, damaging homes in a residential area north of the town of Sellersburg, around 19 kilometers away) north of Louisville, Kentucky.

According to the Clark County Emergency Management Agency, 24 structures were damaged by the storm.

Candice Holmes, a resident of the Lewis & Clark subdivision north of Sellersburg, said she, her husband and son took shelter in their bathroom when they heard the approaching storm and “the wind suddenly increased.”

“My husband and son went outside, opened the door, slammed the door and ran back into the bathroom. And they held the bathroom door shut when she came in,” 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.”

In addition to the five in Warren County, confirmed tornadoes in Ohio occurred in the western part of the state in Greenville in Darke County, west of Coldwater in Mercer County and west of New Knoxville in Auglaize County. According to the weather service, crews are still assessing areas in Franklin and Butler counties to determine whether tornadoes struck there as well.

Just outside Pittsburgh, a weather service team confirmed that a brief tornado with maximum winds of 105 mph (169 km/h) overturned a trailer and downed more than a dozen trees in Findlay Township, Pennsylvania, early Wednesday.

Baseball-sized hail was reported Wednesday in areas southwest of St. Louis, Missouri. Heavy rains caused flash flooding and at least one water rescue near Sullivan, a town hit just two days earlier by a small tornado that destroyed a bar and damaged the high school. Devastating hail was also reported in the Kansas City area.

Radar indicated that Hancock County, West Virginia, and Jefferson County, Ohio, were hit by tornadoes, but teams must assess the damage to determine their classification, Craven said.

Hancock County Schools in West Virginia closed schools Wednesday due to “extensive weather issues overnight” in the county. News agencies reported damaged buildings and power outages.

A National Weather Service team also traveled to Hot Springs, Arkansas, to survey damage and determine the strength of a tornado that struck early Wednesday morning, meteorologist Tabitha Clarke said.

The tornado damaged some homes, uprooted trees, and downed power lines. There were no immediate reports of injuries from the tornado, according to the state Division of Emergency Management.

In Portage, Michigan, about 50 people were temporarily trapped in a damaged FedEx facility due to downed power lines. More than a dozen homes were destroyed and 16 people were injured at a mobile home park in neighboring Pavilion Township, Kalamazoo County Sheriff Richard Fuller said.

“We found houses on the street,” Fuller said late Tuesday. “We found a home in neighbors’ houses. We found big trees in houses.”

The power went out for more than 20,000 people.

“We’re looking at homes all over this community that are completely gone, they’ve been torn down,” Fuller said in daylight at the Pavilion Estates mobile home park.

A house in which seven people lived was “completely out of control,” he said. “They were able to save themselves and get to a safe place and came back today.”

Travis Wycoff headed out Tuesday evening after seeing on radar that a tornado had touched down in the Portage area. About five minutes later he came across the aftermath.

“A lot of people were running through the streets trying to find people and their pets,” Wycoff said. “It was just a lot of chaos.”

Wycoff said he helped an elderly couple out of their partially collapsed home and also rescued a service dog from a home whose owner was at work.

As of early Wednesday, more than 30,000 customers were without power in Michigan and another 10,000 in Ohio, according to PowerOutage.us.

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer declared a state of emergency for four counties.

Tuesday’s storms came a day after parts of the central United States were hit by heavy rain, strong winds, hail and tornadoes. Both the Plains and the Midwest were affected hit by tornadoes this spring.

Across the U.S., the entire week looks stormy. The Midwest and South are expected to be hit hardest by the bad weather the rest of the week, including Indianapolis, Memphis, Nashville, St. Louis and Cincinnati – cities home to more than 21 million people. It should be clear at the weekend.

On Monday evening, a deadly tornado ripped through the Oklahoma town of Barnsdall, which has a population of 1,000. At least one person was killed and another was missing. Dozens of houses were destroyed.

It was the second tornado to strike Barnsdall in five weeks – a tornado on April 1 with maximum winds of 90 to 100 mph (145 to 161 km/h) damaged homes and downed trees and utility poles.

Areas in Oklahoma, including sulfur And Holdenvilleare still recovering from a tornado that killed four people and left thousands without power late last month.

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Murphy reported from Oklahoma City. Associated Press journalists across the country contributed to this report, including Rio Yamat, Heather Hollingsworth, Colleen Slevin, Jim Salter, Kathy McCormack, Sarah Brumfield, Beatrice Dupuy and Alexa St. John.

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