BARTHOLOMEW COUNTY, Ind. — Neighbors were out across Bartholomew County Thursday helping clean up the damage from the Wednesday night tornado.
The National Weather Service confirmed an EF-2 tornado swept through the county. It started south of Columbus and continued northeast for 13 minutes. No injuries were reported.
The NWS and Bartholomew County Emergency Management Agency were out Thursday for several hours surveying the damage.
”We look at the amount of debris, the damage to the structure, the path, the length of it,” said EMA Director Shannan Cooke. “[The NWS} will determine all of that to give us a full picture of what we had strength wise and length of time it was on the ground.”
Logan Craig watched as the tornado came toward his house just five miles south of Columbus Wednesday night.
”It was loud and it was rough,” Craig said. “I was standing in the front window looking off across the field and I could see some power lines flashing off in the distance. I was like, ‘That’s not good.'”
Craig said he barely had enough time to get to safety with his wife and three kids.
“Everything was shaking and blowing and really loud,” he said. “Real scary, real quick and then it was gone.”
Craig said he went outside to see the damage afterward but couldn’t get the full picture until daylight on Thursday.
A barn and silo just a field away had been wiped out. Metal pieces of the silo were strewn about the field and a huge piece had landed in his next door neighbor’s backyard.
”I would say if it was just a little bit farther this direction it probably would’ve been a lot worse,” Craig said. “It was close, so we got lucky.”
The worst of the damage was just east of Columbus along County Road South 650 East. An even larger barn, silo and other buildings appeared to have been right in the path of the tornado. A neighbor estimated it at a multi-million dollar loss.
”It came through last night and it was nasty,” Mike Camman said. He lives just around the corner from the farm with the worst damage.
Camman had damage to his own farm, as well. A hog barn and storage shed had its roof ripped off.
”It’s a total loss, so we’ll go back in and regroup,” he said. “You move on, you know, and it’s tough.”
Despite all the damage, Cooke said no injuries have been reported.
“Houses and vehicles and things like that can be replaced, we cant replace the lives,” Cooke said.
