Southwest Ohio suffers extensive storm damage

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Strong storms ripped the roof and chimney from a home, forced an apartment evacuation and pushed over a semitrailer as southwest Ohio was hammered by a system that caused extensive damage in the Midwest and some southern states.
Deaths were reported in Tennessee, Missouri and Illinois. No serious injuries were reported in Ohio, where winds topping 70 mph -- accompanied by rain and lightning -- damaged roofs of homes and barns, and knocked down trees and power lines late Sunday and early Monday, authorities said.
"In every county in southwest Ohio, there has been some type of damage," said Myron Padgett, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Wilmington.
In Warren County northeast of Cincinnati, high winds tore the roof off a house and knocked down the chimney, which fell away from the home, said Brad Edrington, a communications supervisor at the sheriff's office.
The people inside the home -- in Clearcreek Township north of Lebanon -- escaped uninjured, Edrington said. He didn't know how many people were there at the time of the storm, about 11:30 p.m. Sunday.
The sheriff's office received several reports of homes' being struck by lightning. No one was injured in the strikes, and the homes did not sustain significant damage, Edrington said.
Apartments evacuated
Cincinnati fire officials cleared a 24-unit, three-story apartment building and had its utilities turned off after one of the top-floor apartments collapsed about 11:20 p.m., district chief Glenn Coleman said.
"There was a guy in there sleeping when it happened, but he wasn't hurt," Coleman said.
The building was to be inspected Monday, Coleman said. The Red Cross found housing for displaced residents, he said.
In Fayette County, about 60 miles northeast of Cincinnati, a semitrailer held onto its cargo of frozen meat when it was blown over about midnight while traveling on Old Route 35, deputy sheriff Todd Oesterle said. He wasn't sure how fast the truck was going when it tipped.
The truck driver was treated for cuts and bruises and released from a hospital, Oesterle said.
At Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport, the wind reached 76 mph, the highest recorded by the weather service in the storms, Padgett said.
While that speed matches the wind velocity of a small tornado, forecasters following the storms on radar did not see any rotation that would indicate a tornado touched down in Ohio, Padgett said.