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.
The State Police said ambulances took injured people to hospitals after the tornado barreled through Gaylord, a city of about 4,200 people roughly 230 miles (370 kilometers) northwest of Detroit. There were no deaths confirmed, the agency said.
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.”
The tornado, which passed through the city around 3:45 p.m., damaged multiple homes and downed trees and power lines that blocked roads, authorities said. Images shared on social media showed multiple recreational vehicles shredded to pieces in a parking lot.
Mike Klepadlo, owner of Alter-Start 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.”
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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.
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Otsego Memorial Hospital was not damaged but was running on generator power, spokesman Brian Lawson said.
He said he didn’t know how many injured people were being treated at the hospital. The Red Cross, meanwhile, 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.
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The last time Gaylord had a severe wind storm was in 1998, when straight-line winds reached 100 mph, Keysor 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.
The community also holds the annual Alpenfest in July, an Alpine-inspired celebration honoring the city’s heritage and a partnership with a sister city in Switzerland.
White reported from Detroit. AP reporters Corey Williams in Detroit, Ken Kusmer in Indianapolis, Sara Burnett in Chicago and Steve Karnowski in Minneapolis contributed.
© 2022 The Canadian Press
