Local, state and federal officials are examining storm damage in and around Broadway after a powerful storm moved through the area Thursday night. Officials believe an investigation will reveal it was a tornado that caused much of the damage. Above, debris filled the yard of this wind-damaged home on Route 739.
(Journal-Tribune photo by Mac Cordell)
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Randy Trapp said his father moved to the family’s farm on Patrick-Brush Run Road in 1947.
“I’ve lived here my whole life. It’s a generational farm,” Trapp said.
Trapp said that if his family and his parents want to continue to live on the property, they will need to rebuild.
The two homes on the property — one Trapp and his family live in and one his parents live in — were both destroyed Thursday evening after a severe storm moved through the area.
“I don’t really know for sure what happened,” he said Friday morning. In addition to the homes, several barns and silos were also destroyed and materials and contents deposited in fields hundreds of yards from where they originated.
The storms were part of the same line of severe weather and tornadoes that swept through Indiana and Ohio on Thursday evening, leaving at least three people dead in Logan County. The National Weather Service confirmed Friday that Indian Lake was hit by an EF2 tornado. At press time, no official ruling has been made on the Union County weather event.
Union County Emergency Management Agency Director Brad Gilbert said it will be up to the National Weather Service to make the final determination, but based on the damage and the debris, “I feel pretty confident we had a tornado.”
Bill Steele said he is not a weather expert, but like Gilbert, he believes it was a tornado that did the damage.
“It had to be,” he said.
Steele was in Broadway at the cemetery where his parents are buried.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” he said.
Many of the tall cedar trees in the cemetery were damaged, either ripped up by the roots or with the top half twisted off and deposited somewhere nearby. Steele said he believes many of the trees were more than a century old.
“It’s so sad,” Steele said.
An Evans Road resident said she is grateful.
“We are all good,” she said, though she explained her home has no power and no water and she can’t get her car out of her garage because of damage.
The woman explained that she and her family were in the basement when the storm came through.
“That’s good,” Gilbert told her.
She said her neighbors are also safe. She said the woman who lives next door was in the basement, but the man who lives there is in a wheelchair. She said the man went into a bathroom in the center of the home while the storm ripped a portion of the home away.
Officials from the National Weather Service were with Gilbert in the community Friday afternoon surveying damage.
Marita Salkowski, with the American Red Cross, said Red Cross disaster assessment teams will also be coming into the area.
“What we don’t know right now is exactly how many homes have been impacted,” Salkowski said.
She said any homeowner that needs assistance or has damage or knows of a neighbor with damage is asked to call the Red Cross at 1-800-RED CROSS.
“We need to get that information because we want to be able to get help to people as quickly as possible,” she said.
Gilbert and others from the EMA were on roads in the area Friday morning, speaking with residents, taking pictures and documenting damage.
“Our ultimate goal is to figure out where it started and where it ended,” Gilbert said, explaining all the data will be mapped as officials “plot the path.”
As he was observing the damage, Gilbert noted the path of the storm was “really, really long, a lot longer than I anticipated.”
Gilbert said that based on how much damage the county sustained, there is a possibility of receiving federal assistance, though he doubts Union County will reach the threshold.
Gilbert said it is incredible how the storm was devastating to some homes while trees and homes just feet away look untouched.
“It’s amazing how it just picked and chose where to hit,” he said.
Gilbert said it is fortunate that an electrical substation in the area does not seem to be damaged.
“That would have been bad for a whole bunch of people in Ohio,” Gilbert said.
Officials said the area is fortunate that while there is significant property damage in areas, there are no injury reports out of Union County.
The Evans Road elderly couple is safe with children in another community and as of Friday, Randy Trapp’s parents were safe, in a hotel for now.
“You have to deal with it,” Trapp said. “I’ll rebuild. It’s my life here.”