Tornado touches down in Johnson County early Sunday
PRINCE’S LAKES (WISH) — For a second time in a month, a tornado touched down in central Indiana without a warning.
It happened in the small communities of Prince’s Lakes and Nineveh early Sunday morning.
Some people living in the hardest hit areas said they have been without power.
Clarissa Knight told 24 Hour News 8 the storm woke her up around 4:00 a.m.
“There was a huge flash of lightning, it lit up my room, and woke me up,” said Clarissa Knight, Prince’s Lakes resident. “It was real loud, kind of scared me, made me jumped out of my bed and then saw some tornadoes in the sky.”
The National Weather Service confirmed that an EF0 tornado touched down causing damage and what could be a costly cleanup for homeowners.
“At first we were looking at possibly straight line wind event, but after seeing some more of the pictures and hearing some more of the reports from our emergency management partners, decided to come down and take a look,” said Earl Breon, NWS Indianapolis.
Earl Breon with the National Weather Service of Indianapolis surveyed the damage in Nineveh and Prince’s Lakes.
“We definitely found some signs of rotation that correlated with some small signatures on the radar,” said Earl Breon, NWS Indianapolis.
The now confirmed EF0 tornado with wind speeds anywhere between 65 to 85 miles per hour caused significant damage across town. The storm destroyed roofs to homes, brought down limbs and branches. Mother Nature also uprooted massive old trees from the ground up.
Breon believes the tornado moved through area around Samaria to the south east side of Prince’s Lakes.
“We’re not 100% certain that it was a tornado that entire path. We’re going to have to get back and correlate some of the damage with the radar, but at least at a few point it hit the high end EF0 range,” said Breon.
Friendly neighbors and volunteers spent most of the day chopping down the damaged trees and clearing the debris.
“We got here, we could not pull into the driveway because all of the trees being down,” said Angela Darnell, homeowner. “We found that we lost between 35 to 40 trees that has been uprooted.”
Homeowners like Mark and Angela Darnell said they were not home when the storm system moved through.
“We really didn’t think we had a house left,” said Mark Darnell, homeowner “We got home about 15 minutes after it happened and seen what’s left of our five acres.”
The Darnells’ said they are just thankful no one was hurt and believe it could have been much worst.
“The neighbor next to us had a tree go through their house and an actual tree limb landed less than two inches from their kids mattress,” said Angela Darnell.
The American Red Cross has now set up a shelter at the Nineveh Christian Church for residents in need of a place to cool down while the cleanup continues.
“If we get no shelter in place tonight, anyone wanting to stay all night,” said JP Renner, American Red Cross Disaster Relief. “I will close and then reopened at 10 a.m. for those that want to come and cool and have a bite to eat or charge their phones.”
The Indiana Department of Homeland Security also assessed the damage. The agency said no one was hurt and no injuries were reported.
The last time a tornado touched down in the region was May 30 in southeast Indianapolis.