Two killed, dozens injured in rare Michigan tornado
Severe storms were predicted, but twister came fast
A tornado that killed at least two people and injured dozens of others dropped out of the sky in far northern Michigan on Friday and onto a mobile home park before tearing a three-block hole through the small city of Gaylord.
As cleanup began Saturday, and as more than 40 people were treated for injuries, officials struggled to make sense of the damage in a region where tornadoes are rare. One person remained unaccounted for, and crews continued to search through wreckage.
“There have been trailers picked up and turned over on top of each other,” said Chief Chris Martin of the Otsego County Fire Department. He estimated nearly all of the Nottingham Forest mobile home park, where the deaths were reported, was destroyed.
Forecasters warned about the potential for severe weather Friday, but the tornado that hit Gaylord, population 4,300, came suddenly. A severe thunderstorm warning in the afternoon was quickly upgraded to a tornado warning. The city, 230 miles northwest of Detroit, has no tornado sirens, officials said, but people in the area were alerted to the storm by emergency notifications on their cellphones.
Within minutes, a tornado was on the ground, tearing apart the mobile homes and then charging across city limits from west to east. Cars were tossed on top of one another in a Hobby Lobby parking lot. A truck was upended next to a sign for a Culver’s restaurant. On shredded residential streets, police officers soon found themselves looking for neighbors in the rubble.
“We were calling them out by name, trying to see if they were still in their damaged homes,” said Chief Frank Claeys of the Gaylord Police Department. “And when you see that, it’s a lot more personal when our officers know the names of people who live in those homes.”
Tornadoes are far less common in Michigan than in many Midwestern states. John Boris, of the National Weather Service office in Gaylord, said the state averages 15 a year. Most occur south of Gaylord, which is 60 miles from the tip of the state’s Lower Peninsula.