Storms down trees, knock out power, flatten barns

No serious injuries were reported.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Storms packing strong winds, rain and hail, blew a semitrailer off a highway, flattened a barn and knocked out power to thousands in Ohio with service to some homes in the Cincinnati area not expected to be restored until Saturday evening.
No serious injuries were reported in Thursday night's storms that uprooted trees and stripped roofs off some buildings.
Downed trees were reported in Cincinnati, Springfield in western Ohio and Columbus, where winds reached 60 mph, said Brian Coniglio, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Wilmington. Light poles were blown down in London, west of Columbus, Coniglio said.
No people or animals were injured when the wind leveled a barn near Sidney in western Ohio, the Shelby County sheriff's office said.
In northwest Ohio, the semitrailer was blown off the road near Woodville, but no one was injured. Also in Sandusky County, roofs were blown off a carwash and a storage building, and falling trees damaged three homes in Clyde.
Limb splits
In Springfield, a large limb split from a tree and came crashing down next to a dugout at the National Trails Parks and Recreation baseball complex where players, coaches and umpires were huddled seeking shelter from the storm.
"I thought for sure it was going to hit," said Scott Sagraves, father of one of the players. "If it had been about 10 feet over it would have crushed" the dugout.
About 187,000 Duke Energy customers in southwest Ohio and northern Kentucky without electricity at one point, spokesman Steve Brash said Friday. Service had been restored to all but about 22,000 those customers by early Friday, Brash said. Some homes in northeast Hamilton County and western Clermont County would not have power restored until Saturday.
In Warren County in southwest Ohio, a man was treated at a hospital then released after a tree fell on a home near the town of Pleasant Plain, a hospital emergency room worker said Friday.
There were reports of a possible tornado about 9 p.m. Thursday near Wooster in northeast Ohio, said Jim Kosarik, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Cleveland. But there probably will no survey of the area to confirm whether there was a tornado since no property damage was reported, he said.
Hail fell in several locations, with chunks 11/2 inches in diameter pelting an area north of Shelby in north-central Ohio's Richland County, said Dan Leins, a weather service meteorologist in Cleveland.