Friday's storms leave a mess for St. Joe Co. residents

by Kelli Cheatham (kcheatham@wsbt.com)

Tools

Storms washed over the region on Friday, uprooting trees and mangling power lines. Southern St. Joseph County was one of the hardest hit areas. (WSBT photo)

By WSBT News1

Story Created: Jun 19, 2009 at 6:18 PM EST

Story Updated: Jun 19, 2009 at 6:18 PM EST

ST. JOSEPH COUNTY — Area emergency response departments dealt with numerous reports of trees and limbs down over the course of Friday’s storms. One of the hardest hit areas appears to be in southern St. Joseph County.

Multimedia

Watch The Video

People who live in the neighborhood just north of Southlawn Cemetery and east of U.S. 31 are still cleaning up. They say some powerful straight-line winds barreled through very early Friday morning.

“It sounded like a train. And it just lasted for about 10 minutes and it was over,” said Jim Hall, who had a tree fall on his car.

It was a powerful punch from Mother Nature.

“About 4:20, 4:30 this morning, I just heard a big crack and it was over. Happened that fast,” said Chris Hawley, talking about a huge tree that was uprooted in his front yard.

Uprooted trees, mangled power lines and scattered limbs tell the story best.

“It sounded like stuff was hitting the windows and kind of like the windows were going to break, said Meghan Miller, who was awakened by the storm.

Like Hall, a tree also fell on Robert Kokh’s car.

“I thought it might be a tornado because there was a loud, like a whishing noise,” he said.

From southern St. Joe County to Mishawaka, crews worked through the rain to clean up.

If nothing else, neighbors can say the power outage and damage did one good thing — bring them together.

“I checked on my neighbors — they're elderly — made sure they're ok. Checked on some friends behind me, made sure they were fine,” said Hall.

Residents are also looking on the bright side of what they say could have been much worse.

It's incredible that nobody was hurt, said Hawley. “I mean, all these trees are lying parallel to the houses — they could have been perpendicular and right on top of them, so we got lucky.

It has also been a very good day for local tree removal companies. In one neighborhood there four or five different companies sawing, cutting and hauling away downed tree limbs.

As far as power outages, the latest update from AEP indicates that many people are still without power.

More Good Stuff

WSBT Weather

Current Temp 49.4

More Weather

WSBT Weather

More Weather

On Demand

iPhone
Get the WSBT News and Irish Sports Report apps for your iPhone! Read more »
On DVD
Order a DVD of a WSBT news story! Read more »
Twitter
Follow us on Twitter! Read more »
Facebook
Connect with us on Facebook! Read more »
WSBT E-News
Daily StormTracker e-mails right to your Inbox! Read more »
Video On Demand
Miss a story on WSBT News? Watch it here! Read more »
CBS Shows
Watch CBS shows and news online, free! Read more »
WSBT Alert
Breaking News & Weather right to your cell phone! Read more »
Mobile
WSBT News on the go for your cell phone or PDA. Read more »
RSS Feeds
Get news and updates as soon as they're published. Read more »

Stock Quotes

YouNews

This content requires the latest Adobe Flash Player and a browser with JavaScript enabled. Click here for a free download of the latest Adobe Flash Player.