Rare tornado batters northern Michigan town
GAYLORD, Mich. (AP) — A rare tornado tore through a small northern Michigan community on Friday, inflicting injuries, flipping vehicles, tearing the roofs off
buildings and causing other damage.
Ambulances were taking injured people to hospitals, though no
deaths were confirmed, the State Police said.
The tornado struck Gaylord, a community of roughly 4,200 people about 230 miles (370 kilometers) northwest of Detroit.
Eddie Thrasher, 55, said he was sitting in his car outside an auto parts store when the twister seemed to appear above him.
“There are roofs ripped off businesses, a row of industrial-type warehouses,” Thrasher said. “RVS were flipped upside down and destroyed. There were a lot of emergency vehicles heading from the east side of town.”
He said he ran into the store to ride it out.
“My adrenaline was going like crazy,” Thrasher said. “In less than five minutes it was over.”
Multiple homes were damaged and trees, and powerlines were down and blocking roads, State Police said on Twitter.
Mike Klepadlo, owner of Alterstart North, a car repair shop, said he and his workers took cover in a bathroom.
“I’m lucky I’m alive. It blew the back off the building,” he said. “Twenty feet (6 meters) of the back wall is gone. The whole roof is
missing. At least half the building is still here. It’s bad.”
Video posted on social media showed extensive damage along Gaylord’s Main Street. One building appeared to be largely collapsed and a Goodwill store was
badly damaged. A collapsed utility pole lay on the side of the road, and debris, including what appeared to
be electrical wires and parts of a Marathon gas station, was scattered all along the street.
Otsego Memorial Hospital said it had no comment about any people
seeking treatment for injuries. The Red Cross was setting up a shelter at a church.
Jim Keysor, a Gaylord-based meteorologist with the National Weather Service, said extreme winds are uncommon in that part
of Michigan because the Great Lakes suck energy out of storms,
especially early in spring when the lakes are very cold.
“Many kids and young adults would have never experienced any
direct severe weather if they had lived in Gaylord their entire lives,”
he said. The last time Gaylord suffered severe damage from a wind
storm was in 1998, when straightline winds reached 100 mph, the weather service said.
Brandie Slough, 42, said she and a teen daughter sought safety in a restroom at a Culver’s. Windows of the fast food restaurant were blown
out when they emerged, and her pickup truck had been flipped on its roof in the parking lot.
“We shook our heads in disbelief but are thankful to be safe. At that point, who cares about the truck,” Slough said.
Gaylord, known as the “Alpine Village,” is set to celebrate its 100th birthday this year, with a centennial celebration that will include a parade and open house at City Hall later this summer.