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One mobile home in the Grand Manor Mobile Home Park was leveled during a storm Thursday. According to Mercer County Sheriff Jeff Grey, two people were injured. He didn't think the injuries were life-threatening.
CELINA - Two EF1 tornadoes packing winds up to 110 mph tore through Mercer County on Thursday evening, the National Weather Service in Wilmington confirmed on Friday.
One of the twisters that touched down traversed about 8 miles before lifting, while another continued its trail of destruction well into Auglaize County, NWS meteorologist Steve Hrebenach told The Daily Standard.
Surveyors on Friday were also assessing the path of a storm that went on to wreak devastation in Logan County, leaving three people dead.
"There's still a survey crew looking at another path that started south of Wapakoneta and then went due east, and that was the storm that eventually hit the Lakeview area," Hrebenach said.
As of Friday evening, local officials reported three non-life threatening injuries in Mercer County and just under 10 in Auglaize County. There were also accounts of minor to severe property damage and some outright obliterated structures.
Parts of Auglaize County were in bedlam on Thursday evening.
"It was mass chaos for a period of time, but they (first responders) all came together," said Auglaize County Sheriff Michael Vorhees. "Our dispatch center was overwhelmed for a little while, but they all came together, got the information out. We had multiple reports of fires, people trapped. They just all worked together. It was good communication between all the first responders."
Several farms on Harris Road north of State Route 29 lost outbuildings and sustained extensive damage to dwellings. The debris is scattered hundreds of yards through fields to the east. Many people started cleanup efforts Friday morning.
The first tornado touched down a little before 7 p.m. in western Mercer County near the state line and proceeded 7 to 8 miles before lifting, according to Hrebenach.
"It kind of followed Carmel Church Road up and then once you got across (State Route) 118, it kind of switched and there were a couple of properties with some damage on Mud Pike," said Mercer County Emergency Management Agency Director Mike Robbins.
The tornado dissipated before the fast-moving storm spawned a second tornado somewhere around Celina, Hrebenach said.
"That went basically due east and went into Auglaize County north of St. Marys and continued on well into Auglaize County, stopping several miles west of Wapakoneta," he said.
With the light of morning, local officials were able to get a clearer view of the tornado damage.
"A lot more damage out west to farm buildings and machine sheds than there were the homes, but there were several homes that were damaged," Robbins said.
He does not anticipate, at least at this point, that a state or federal emergency declaration will be made. That could change, though, once the damage reports throughout the region are tallied, he added.
Though Thursday's tornadoes were not as fierce as the EF3 tornado that barreled through northwestern Celina and adjacent areas with top wind speeds of 150 mph on Memorial Day 2019, it was certainly destructive.
"It was definitely bad enough. I mean, there's some definite economic impact out there," Robbins said. "We didn't get to talk to a lot of homeowners or landowners, but my guess is most of it was insured if not all of it."
Robbins didn't have specific figures at hand but estimated less than 50 buildings were either damaged or destroyed in Mercer County. That number doesn't include farm buildings, he added.
"Farm Service Agency was out there doing damage assessments this morning, too," he pointed out.
Trees and power lines were toppled and roofs torn off structures to the north and west of Celina, according to Mercer County Sheriff Jeff Grey. Two barns northwest of Celina near Chattanooga were demolished.
The occupant of this home on 4 Turkey Road was assisted by her neighbors to safety after the storm. The barn and shed were destroyed along with many of the trees. Family members were assessing the damage Friday morning and personnel from the Celina Fire Department checked on homes in the neighborhood.
There were reports of a house, barn and vehicles being completely destroyed on 4 Turkey Road east of Celina.
A tornado laid to waste a large pole barn on a 47-acre farm on Skeels Road and brought down a 60-by-180-foot barn, ripped off siding from a house and damaged other structures at a cattle farm on 7610 Wabash Road.
"Those farm buildings, the big machine sheds, well, once it gets air inside that, it's real easy for it to pop the roof off," Robbins said. "If those doors come open and it blows in there, those wide expanse areas without a bunch of walls like a house has holding it down, those get damaged easier."
A building at RJ Corman on Albers Road east of Celina was flattened by the storm. Workers use a wheel loader to start clearing debris.
In Mercer County, storms inflicted significant structural damage to the RJ Corman distribution center and Maverick Mechanical Installations on Albers Road, Victorum Learning Center on Staeger Road and Menards on Havemann Road, Grey said.
Celina Mayor Jeff Hazel on Friday said three people suffered non-life threatening injuries at Grand Manor Mobile Home Park.
"One trailer was destroyed," Robbins confirmed. "When we were there this morning, the owner of the park actually had a small excavator in there, and they were actually loading it in a dump truck."
One person from the mobile home park called Robbins' office on Thursday requesting assistance. The caller was put in touch with the Red Cross, he said.
Power transmission lines lay on the ground through the Mercer County Fairgrounds. Electric crews from Tipp City and Wapakoneta assist Celina Utilities to plant new poles and repair the lines.
Hazel said just short of a dozen 75-foot-high transmission poles were knocked down at the fairgrounds and another eight or nine at Eastview Park, plunging the city into darkness. They all had to be replaced and the cables restrung.
Crews were promptly dispatched to several sites and worked through the night and morning and into the evening hours on Friday restoring power. They were assisted by linemen and equipment from Wapakoneta, Tipp City, Piqua and Versailles.
Power was returned to about 75% of the city sometime early Friday morning but crews then had to turn their attention to multiple downed circuits in order to get the lights back on in northeast Celina.
At least five of the main transmission poles near the Eastview Park pond were knocked over. Debris probably from the Menards lumber yard roof was visible in the pond. The park was closed Friday as crews were still working on repairing the lines at sunset Friday night.
Several businesses on Havemann Road and in its vicinity were closed on Friday because of the outage, including Celina AluminumPrecision Technology, according to Hazel. Power was expected to be restored to most of the city by Friday night.
At this farm along US Route 33 west of St. Marys, a silo is bent in half and the old barn half blown apart and half flattened. Crews from Midwest Electric work to repair power lines along the road.
Vorhees said there were at least three injuries in the area of Fryburg and some minor injuries around St. Marys from falling debris.
Storm-related damage was widespread.
"It was sporadic north of St. Marys where barns were down, power lines, things of that nature, and then when we got just southeast of Wapakoneta and the Freyburg area, they had heavy damage in the Glacier Hills campground area," he said. "That was the most extensive in one area and several homes sporadically there to the county line."
Vorhees believes at least 70 units were damaged at Glacier Hills.
"We had several teams at the Glacier Hills area doing search and rescue and then we had sporadic teams that were going around the county, including my deputies from the sheriff's office and also fire and EMS from each district checking damaged properties," he said.
Temporary shelters were established in Wapakoneta and St. John's Catholic Church in Fryburg for those displaced by the tornado.
"EMA was able to work with them and get them to the CERT Team, get them housing in some of the hotels, if they didn't have family to stay with," Vorhees said.
Four farms along a half-mile stretch of Koenig Road between State Routes 29 and 33 lost buildings. Generally speaking, the old timber frame barns fared better than the newer pole barns but they all suffered damage.
