Confirmed tornado touches down in Greenwood

GREENWOOD, Ind. (WISH) – An EF-1 tornado left a trail of damage through a small stretch of Johnson County Wednesday, with winds strong enough to rip off roofs and aluminum siding.

The National Weather Service reported winds reached 90 to 100 miles per hour and that the tornado traveled about one fourth of a mile.

The owner of Academy Animal Hospital off State Road 135 just north of Smith Valley Road said the tornado ripped off about one third of the building’s roof around 3:15 p.m.

• Photos | Damage from the storms

He said luckily their ceiling was intact, but because of the heavy rain there was some leakage.

Hours later, crews were working to keep a tarp over the area where the roof was ripped off.

Nobody inside the hospital was hurt, including the animals.

The owner said he was on his way home around 3 p.m. when his co-workers frantically called him saying the roof blew off. He thought they were kidding.

“I was in disbelief. And so I turned around and came back but I could tell they weren’t joking,” said David Morgan, owner and veterinarian. “Traffic was shutdown, lots of debris everywhere. All the insulation blew all over the place. If you look there’s even insulation hanging in the electrical wires going across the road.”

The part of the roof that blew off landed about 100 yards west across State Road 135 in a parking lot. There were pieces of plywood, aluminum, insulation and tree branches scattered all over.

The tornado even shifted an SUV out of its original parking spot. Luckily nobody was in the parking lot at the time. Morgan said the animal hospital will be open the next day, business as usual.

Also included in the tornadoes path were several homes. One home located on Chase Boulevard, about one fourth of a mile east from the animal hospital, lost some of its siding to the tornado.

It also had a neighbor’s siding scattered in the yard. The homeowner said he has to leave all of the debris the way that it is so his insurance company can assess the damage.

The homeowner said the wind was strong enough to crack his living room wall. And while this was all happening, he was walking through his garage with the door open.

“It was like a curtain of wind and rain that just swept over,” said homeowner Joel Beavers. “It was hitting the garage door. I could see the garage door was struggling to close when it happened. I mean it was just so instant.”

The tornado was also strong enough to snap some large tree branches nearly a foot in diameter next to a home on Smith Valley Road.

Luckily none of the trees fell on the house. A boy who was in the home said he could see dirt and branches swirling outside his window, but never realized it was a tornado.