“I saw my house and I’ll be honest, I was just devastated”, Kokomo resident Jennifer Seagrave said. Wednesday’s tornado was classified as an EF3 with winds of up to 165 miles per hour.
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Wednesday’s tornado outbreak that swept IN came only about a week after another big August outbreak of tornadoes hit the state.
This image made from a video provided by WTHR 13 shows damage to homes after a tornado in Kokomo, Ind., Wednesday, Aug. 24.
Kwiatkowski says storms like this are fairly unusual. He was expected to tour Kokomo on Thursday. Ryan says he expects that tally to increase.
This image made from a video shows a tornado Wednesday, Aug. 24, 2016, in Kokomo, Ind.?Multiple tornadoes touched down in central in on Wednesday, tearing the roofs off apartment buildings, sending air conditioners fallin.
Weather service crews were still assessing the scope of the storms in Indiana.
However, all that damage hasn’t kept volunteers from coming to help people try to recover what’s left of the places they once called home.
The people of Kokomo, north of Indianapolis, were grateful for the attention.
Tornadoes were also spotted across the border in northwest Ohio.
Nine different counties reported funnel clouds and tornado touchdowns.
The damage is widespread, but miraculously there were only minor injuries.
A view of the night sky in Muncie after the tornado sirens sounded in Delaware County.
Frontman Gene Simmons tweeted that the band’s show in Toledo, Ohio, was stopped briefly Wednesday night during a tornado warning.
The day after the storm hit, Noah said he was up early, helping cut down trees, cleaning up debris and taking water and other necessities to those in the area. The worst damage appeared to be at a mobile home park in Defiance, and roads around the site were blocked late Wednesday. The National Weather Service says it was an EF3 tornado, packing winds of up to 165 miles per hour.
Pence and U.S. Sen.
“We are committed to supporting residents in affected areas”, said Chad Priest, Regional CEO for the Indiana Region for the American Red Cross.
The National Weather Service says it’s still unclear how many tornadoes touched down in IN on Wednesday.
He says five separate weather service survey crews are scouring areas with storm damage in central and northern in to determine if tornadoes struck there.
Mike Pence hugged and chatted with residents in a neighborhood where the damage seemed to skip some homes altogether. Some homes are ruined while others were largely untouched.
Pence returned to IN after campaign stops IN North Carolina on Wednesday. He has cancelled a campaign trip planned for Thursday.
Kokomo Mayor Greg Goodnight said there was “substantial damage to property” in his city and that “a lot of trees are down”. While the state’s Department of Homeland Security initially said 12 tornadoes were confirmed, it lowered that count to eight late Thursday morning.
At a meeting in Indianapolis Wednesday, Pence was briefed by emergency operations personnel about the extent of the destruction.
They left it leaning against their house in Kokomo, grabbed their two young sons, and sought shelter at a Burger King half-an-hour away in Tipton County, before the next tornado moved into Howard County.
They’re working with the Howard County Emergency Management Agency to set up an animal shelter for non-service animals.
One shelter is at the Kokomo Event and Conference Center. Kokomo is about 50 miles north of Indianapolis.
Another shelter is at Walnut Elementary School in New Ross, northwest of Indianapolis. “Trying to get peoples’ stuff out”, said Layne.
He says those systems then produced thunderstorms, which intensified the problem. Another possible seven tornadoes have yet to be confirmed. The original update relied on information from the weather service’s tally of an August 15 tornado outbreak, not Wednesday’s storm.
Gov. Pence praises common sense for saving Hoosier lives. The Republican vice presidential candidate returned to his home state Wednesday evening.
“It’s up to us especially community leaders, the pastors and the community leaders to step and to provide them with the assistance that they need”, said Brian Layne, who helped organize a prayer service.
Several Colts rookies and team mascot Blue traveled to Kokomo in the afternoon and visited storm victims in the care of the local Red Cross.
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Indiana State Police spokesman Capt. David Bursten says about a dozen people were injured, but none seriously.
