4 tornadoes confirmed in Ohio

Associated Press

CINCINNATI

Four tornadoes that touched down in Ohio tore roofs off homes, damaged businesses, destroyed barns and left uprooted trees in their wake, the National Weather Service confirmed Thursday.

No injuries were reported in the tornadoes that struck from Wednesday evening through early Thursday morning as storms rolled through the state with strong winds, heavy rain and large hail.

A tornado with wind speeds of up to 105 mph touched down in Butler County’s Liberty Township in southwest Ohio about 12:30 a.m. Thursday, leaving a home looking like a house of cards, with the roof and the second floor’s exterior walls torn away. The family of four living there was uninjured but shaken.

Brad Hawkins said he was on the first floor and heard his daughter scream from upstairs.

“When I looked up the steps, the roof was completely gone,” Hawkins, 55, told The Cincinnati Enquirer. “As you can imagine, I was kind of freaking out a little bit.”

Initial estimates from the area showed a total of about 16 homes damaged and a vehicle rolled over, township Fire Chief Paul Stumpf said.

A tornado that touched down in north-central Ohio’s Huron County about 6 p.m. Wednesday had estimated wind speeds of up to 100 mph. It hit between Monroeville and Norwalk, tracking through farm fields and destroying a barn before damaging 10 or 12 homes and several businesses, the National Weather Service in Cleveland said. There were a few roofs blown off homes, and other homes were damaged by falling trees.

Bridgette Liedorff, of Norwalk, saw the tornado come down in a field as she was driving and took a photo with her cellphone because she “thought nobody would believe me that I was this close to a tornado,” the Sandusky Register reported.

The other two tornadoes in southwest Ohio were on the lowest end of the magnitude scale. One destroyed a barn and damaged another in Fayette County near Bloomingburg around 1:30 a.m., and the other touched down shortly after 7 p.m. Wednesday near Centerville in Montgomery County. That tornado briefly came down on the grounds of Miami Valley Hospital South, downing a small path of trees in a wooded area north of the hospital, the National Weather Service’s Wilmington office said.

That tornado developed from the same thunderstorm that produced hail 2 to 3 inches in diameter that damaged vehicles and buildings in Centerville and Bellbrook.

Two truckers — one near Findlay in northwest Ohio and one in southwest Ohio’s Hamilton suffered minor injuries when their tractor-trailers were tipped over by strong winds, authorities said.

Another driver suffered minor injuries when a nearly 100-foot-tall tree fell onto his car southeast of Dayton, according to the Dayton Daily News.

In Northeast Ohio, winds shattered the window of a mall in Fairlawn and blew the roof off a church. A hotel, fire station and homes suffered roof damage in Cuyahoga Falls, and a number of large trees were sheared or snapped near their tops.

At least 3,400 Ohio customers remained without power Thursday evening, with about 1,600 in Hamilton and Warren counties in the Cincinnati area, and about 850 in Montgomery and Greene counties in the Dayton area.