Residents of Indian Lake recount tornado that killed 3: 'It's a noise you'll never forget'

Hunter Vance, 27, was in his girlfriend's home near downtown Lakeview on Thursday night when a deadly tornado that killed three people and injured some 20 others at an Indian Lake mobile home park tore through their village.

Strong winds from the tornado shattered their house's windows and collapsed the patio roof, sending it plummeting to the ground. Vance and his girlfriend, Gabrielle Taylor, 24, are expecting a baby in June. What's left of their planned baby room is now in their front yard as they continued to pick through their damaged home Friday.

"Thankfully, I took shelter in the shower, the tub, with the dog," Vance said. "Everyone's ok, I'm just thankful for that."

"I'm still in disbelief," Taylor added. "I can't even believe this happened."

Tornado rips through Indian Lake community: 'Everything started shaking'

The National Weather Service confirmed that an EF3 tornado hit the Indian Lake region about 70 miles northwest of Columbus Thursday night. The deadly storms were part of a larger storm system that left a trail of death, debris and destruction through Indiana, Ohio and parts of Kentucky.

As of late Saturday morning, officials in Logan County had yet to identify the three people killed at the mobile home park. Authorities also attributed a fourth death to the storm but said that person died of natural causes.

Lakeview resident Travis Gause grew up in the area and was used to hearing tornado sirens regularly. Nothing ever became of them, he said. That all changed Thursday night when the tornado ripped through his home while he and his family took shelter in the bathroom.

“First it was hail, and then everything started shaking, and you feel it almost rip the roof off the house, and I felt the suction just pulling. It was crazy,” Gause said. “I had never seen anything just quite like that.”

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Loretta Kinney told her goddaughter Lucy there was nothing to be afraid of as the two watched a TV meteorologist warn of storms approaching Logan County on Thursday evening.

Kinney and her brother walked Lucy home and by the time they returned to their own house, Kinney said she realized just how wrong she was. The two headed to the basement and waited out a storm and suspected tornadoes that rolled across the Midwest and the Indian Lake region about 70 miles northwest of Columbus.

By the time they'd emerge, Kinney learned that at least three people had died and homes and businesses around Logan County had been ripped apart.

"Just the noise. When they say you hear a train, it's a noise you'll never forget," Kinney said. "Then to come up and see it, it is so surreal. Even though I'm standing here and looking at everything, it doesn't seem real."

Dodds told The Dispatch that there are parts of the county where nearly every building was leveled. But he's also come across areas where one building was destroyed, and the one next to it remained untouched.

"The power of this thing is just amazing. It hopped around, but when you look at it, it's just amazing," he said.

Just a stone’s throw away from Main Street in Lakeview, Terri Lamb and Tawney Large stood before their beaten and battered businesses the morning after a tornado tore through the village Thursday night.

It was a catastrophic scene at the small lakeside village, as dozens of its buildings had been ripped to shreds, their windows smashed, power polls fallen over, and many trees uprooted.

Lamb, who owns All Around Accounting, and Large, who owns Head To Toe Salon, have lived in the Indian Lake area for years and have never seen destruction of this magnitude.

While the tornado didn't severely damage their businesses, Lamb and Large said they felt terrible for the many Lakeview residents whose homes sustained significant damage, some even destroyed.

“To look around, and you’re used to seeing buildings standing, and now they’re just demolished or halfway there, you just hope and pray for everybody’s families and everybody with what they got going on,” Large said.

Lamb and Large kept their spirits high despite the adversity, citing the village’s unwavering resilience.

“We’re Indian Lake strong, and we’ll be back. This community will come together,” Lamb said.

Greg McDougle, who was staying with his friend and former neighbor, Blaine Schmitt, was able to hunker down in the bathtub with him and his dog.

“We just crawled in the bathtub, got hunkered down, drew the shower curtain over us, and that’s when it just came through,” he said while packing up some belongings before he and his parents traveled out of town.

“It was over as fast as it started … It just happened so fast and it is, it’s just like a runaway train going right through your house.”

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McDougle used to live in the house right next to Schmitt before he moved two years ago. Now, all that remains of his old home is scattered debris, a single flattened wall and the foundation.

Despite feeling rattled, McDougle was thankful just to have survived it all.

“It was God. He was with us,”

Next door, Schmitt's home — the one McDougle and Schmitt sheltered in during the storm — was still standing Friday morning, but the entire front face of the residence was ripped off, and a large tree was toppled onto its roof.

"It sounded like a freight train literally went through the living room," Schmitt said.

Luckily, Schmitt and McDougle managed to get through the storm unscathed.

"I thank God that I'm alive and that my kids weren't here. It was very emotional when I first got here, and it's been emotional ever since then. But I pray every day and it paid off," Schmitt said.

Ohio tornado victims seek shelter, supplies

The number of deaths from the tornado that struck the Lakeview-Indian Lake area could increase as rescue efforts continue into the weekend, Logan County Sheriff Randy Dodds said. There were areas first responders could not search Thursday night into Friday because of debris and downed power lines that made them unsafe to enter.

"It's one hell of a mess up there," Dodds said. "It looks like a war zone."

Aerial photographs of Logan County revealed a path of flattened homes and now displaced community members. The Logan County Emergency Management Agency said it opened a shelter for victims of Thursday night's storm at the Church of God, 1000 E Brown Ave.

Residents were coming and going through the shelter as of early Friday afternoon. Only one person was using the shelter as a refuge, American Red Cross regional spokesperson Don Hawkins said.

"We're set up here for the community if it needs us. We've got snacks; we've got supplies; we've got everything to help shelter and house anyone who needs it," Hawkins said.

Indian Lake High School, just down the road from the worst of the damage, transformed into a relief shelter shortly after the storm. Throughout the day Friday, a steady stream of people came through the school's gym, dropping off their donated toiletries, clothes, food and more.

Philip Albert, a Chippewa Lake resident, drove down to Lakeview on Friday to give out water, snacks and supplies to anyone in need.

“This is a disaster. This is terrible,” Albert said.

“I sat at home and watched the news last night, and then I was on social media seeing pictures of different stuff, but that’s nothing compared to what it is actually seeing it in person. … I feel sorry for these people,” he said.

By Friday afternoon, the gym was filled with rows and rows of supplies and large mounds of essentials like paper towels and diapers. It was so full that the school told locals that donations would not be accepted past 5 p.m. Friday.

It was against this backdrop of community generosity that Ohio officials, including Gov. Mike DeWine, Lt. Gov. Jon Husted, Senate President Matt Huffman and others, held a news conference around 3:30 p.m. Friday to give an update on the recovery.

DeWine drove through the Indian Lake area before the news conference to talk with homeowners and those impacted by the storms.

"There's an awful lot of damage," he said.

DeWine said the Indian Lake community will rebound from the tragedy.

"The Indian Lake community will come back. That's the message I got from everybody," DeWine said at Indian Lake High School.

State Rep. Jon Cross, R-Findlay, who represents part of the area, said lawmakers have to work with the governor to get the community back open.

"This is a community that relies on tourism," Cross said. "We have devastated businesses that lost everything. We need to get these businesses back open."

Ohio's emergency operations center activated Thursday night during the severe weather, ad continues to coordinate damage assessment and cleanup efforts with local, state and federal agencies.

"Fran and I are deeply saddened by those impacted by the tornadoes and severe storms,” DeWine said in a statement released Friday morning. “We share the grief of the families who lost loved ones, homes, and livelihoods. Ohioans will come together as they always do with resilience and compassion as we support and rebuild our communities.”

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Indian Lake, Ohio tornado: Residents say storm was 'like a runaway train'