Severe thunderstorms raked across Ohio Wednesday afternoon and evening, producing at least five confirmed tornadoes.
The National Weather Service has confirmed five tornadoes so far.
One hit the West Milton and Tipp City areas in Miami County. Video shows a tornado damaging buildings, including a Meijer distribution center. It’s been given a preliminary rating of EF-2.
A second tornado, with a preliminary rating of EF-1, struck north of Springfield in Clark County.
A third tornado, rated an EF-0, formed near Sardinia in Brown County.
The NWS confirmed a fourth tornado, rated an EF-1, southeast of Pitsburg in southeast Darke County.
A fifth tornado, rated an EF-0, was also confirmed north of Urbana in Champaign County.
NWS meteorologists are surveying that damage to gather additional details, as well as these other areas:
- Clark County near Lawrenceville
- Hocking County near South Bloomingville
- Champaign County near Urbana
- Noble County near Cumberland
In addition, more than 30 wind damage and six hail reports were received across the state. Straight-line winds knocked down tree limbs and crops.
Joel Smith, director of the Miami County Emergency Management Agency, said nobody was injured at the Meijer facility and there have been no reports of injuries from the storm in the county.
It wasn’t immediately clear if there were injuries in other parts of the state. The National Weather Service issued multiple Tornado Warnings in the area, including one at about 5:45 p.m. Wednesday for Tipp City in Miami County.
Smith said the Meijer facility employs dozens of people. It’s not known how many of them evacuated the part of the structure that was damaged. He said a few other buildings were hit in the area, but the storm’s severe damage mostly hit north of the city’s residential areas.
As of 7:30 p.m. Thursday, more than 2,000 Ohioans are still without power, according to poweroutage.us. This is better than where we were Thursday morning, when more than 8,000 people were without power.
Hocking, Athens and Vinton Counties have the most outages, with around 10% of each county without power.
Here are some photos from the affected areas:
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
