Severe-weather forecasts continue as Ohio cleans up

Associated Press

DAYTON

People from Kansas to Pennsylvania picked up the pieces from a swarm of tornadoes and braced for more twisters Wednesday amid a record-breaking stretch of violent weather.

Multiple tornado warnings were issued for New Jersey and Pennsylvania. At least three tornadoes were confirmed Tuesday in Pennsylvania.

Tuesday marked the 12th-straight day that at least eight tornadoes were reported to the National Weather Service. The previous record for consecutive days with that many tornadoes was an 11-day stretch in 1980.

The weather service website showed at least 27 reports of tornadoes Tuesday, most in Kansas and Missouri but also in Pennsylvania and Illinois.

In Ohio, tens of thousands of residents were without power or water Wednesday in the aftermath of at least eight tornadoes that spun across the state Monday. One person was killed and more than 140 injured.

At least 60,000 people lacked water service in the Dayton area, where ice and water distribution centers were set up. A utility said power had been returned to some 35,000 customers Wednesday, but tens of thousands still were awaiting restoration.

Gov. Mike DeWine declared an emergency in three hard-hit counties, allowing the state to bypass purchasing requirements to speed up delivery of essentials like water and generators.

“We get our share,” DeWine told President Donald Trump on Tuesday, responding to the president’s remark in a personal call that he didn’t think of Ohio when he thought of tornadoes.

“Whatever we have to do, we’ll do,” Trump told the governor. “We’ll take good care of you.”

For Dayton resident Mike Harrington, Monday’s storms brought back memories of one of the state’s worst disasters. That happened on April 3, 1974, when one of the most violent tornadoes ever recorded struck Xenia, Ohio, 15 miles east of Dayton, killing 32 people and nearly wiping the city off the map.

Harrington, now 63, survived that 1974 storm, riding it out in a pitch black locker room at his high school where his track coach rushed athletes caught by the storm during practice.

On Monday, memories of that disaster came racing back as he stood outside his home near Dayton watching the lightning in the clouds and a cellphone alert told him to take cover immediately.

This time a twister roared through about 10 minutes from his house, one of at least three powerful storms that caused widespread damage in the Dayton area.

At the church in Vandalia, where Harrington works as a multimedia specialist, the steeple was toppled and the building is so beat up that it may have to be torn down.