Monday, July 31st, 2023
Officials: Storms but no tornado
By William Kincaid
A tree crashed into a home, displacing occupants, and three barn-like structures were destroyed during storms that passed through the area early Saturday morning.
The heads of local emergency management agencies, though, said they had no reports of injuries. They also indicated no tornadoes had been confirmed in either Mercer County or Auglaize County.
A tornado warning was issued for Mercer County for 3:39 a.m. to 4:15 a.m. Saturday, according to an email relaying an alert from the National Weather Service.
"We had some very heavy storms," said Mike Robbins, director of the Mercer County EMA. "As far as I can tell it was all straight-line winds, but in certain areas it was very strong."
Strong winds toppled utility poles, downed trees and limbs and knocked out power for some residents, Robbins said. Electricity was largely restored by late Saturday afternoon.
A tree fell onto a house on State Route 118 near Wilson Road, southwest of Rockford.
"It did some damage, I think enough that the family is not in the house, but my understanding is they have insurance," Robbins said. "That was the only major damage to homes that I heard. I'm sure people lost some shingles and stuff."
Robbins believes winds reached speeds of 60 mph or higher but noted there was no way to measure them for sure.
"It didn't last long. It was about a three-to-five-minute wind when that front started coming through and then, of course, we got some heavy rain," he said.
He also said several vendor pop-up tents at Celina Lake Festival blew over, and added he heard reports of damage to vendor tents at the National Tractor Pullers Association's Fort Recovery Grand Nationals at Ambassador Park.
A tornado warning was issued for Auglaize County.
"The actual tornado warning was a Doppler-indicated rotation coming out of the southern part of Auglaize County down around Minster and into the northern part of Shelby County," said Auglaize County EMA Director Troy Anderson. "During that period of time we did have some high winds come through."
The winds took down power lines and trees and destroyed two barn structures in the southern part of the county and a barn structure on the east side of Waynesfield, Anderson said.
No tornado was confirmed.
"From the debris, damage that I saw, in my assessment, all look like straight-line winds. Everything was from a west to an easterly direction which is consistent with straight-line winds," he said.
