June 19, 2021 at 4:45 a.m.
TORNADO HITS
Storm destroys several homes in northeast Jay, continues path of damage into Fort Recovery area
TORNADO HITS
A tornado ripped across northeast Jay County and into Mercer County near Fort Recovery late Friday afternoon, leaving a swath of destruction in its wake.
The tornado destroyed at least half a dozen homes, including several in the area of county roads 450 East and 500 North. A complete accounting of the damage was not available at press time.
The one piece of good news as of Friday evening was that the residents of Jay and Mercer counties escaped the tornado unscathed. No injuries were reported in Jay or Mercer counties as of 8 p.m. Friday.
“No injuries, thankfully, have been reported,” said Amy Blakely, director of Jay County Emergency Management Agency, adding that her agency, Jay Emergency Medical Service, Jay County Highway Department, local law enforcement and others were all in the area working to get a handle on the situation. “We’ve got people out trying to assess how bad things are and get things clear.”
The hardest hit location based on initial observations was in the area of county roads 450 East and 500 North.
“That’s apparently the worst of it,” Blakely said.
Homes with severe damage in that area included those owned by Keith and Melissa Brunswick at 5396 N. 450 East — it no longer had a roof — and Matt and Betsy Minnich just to the south at 5212 N. 450 East.
At the time the twister hit, Betsy Minnich and her children were 2 miles south helping her parents with a garage sale. Matt was at Minnich Poultry instructing other workers to buckle down for the storm.
“We could see the tornado,” Matt Minnich said. “We saw the debris flying, (I) didn’t think it was mine. Apparently it was.”
In the aftermath, the Minnichs walked over broken glass, loose bricks and other pieces of their house scattered across the yard in order to assess the damage. Their outbuilding was flattened, half of their home’s roof was missing and their garage was reduced to nothing but a shell of strand boards and concrete.
The tornado also hit an unoccupied building at 5183 N. 450 East owned by H&G Agriculture Holdings. Grain bins and outbuildings lay in the field or around the property.
Several buildings were wiped out at the Edward and Paula Davidson property at 5006 E. 500 North.
A series of utility poles was also torn down along the east side of county road 450 East north of county road 500 North.
Trent Muhlenkamp said his wife Kelsi first saw the weather taking a bad turn from their home at 6263 E. Indiana 67.
“I didn’t think much of it at the time,” he said. “Then I kind of got up and looked. It’s like, ‘OK, it’s time to go to the basement.’ And then, it was just like that, it was done.”
The storm continued on a generally southeast trajectory, destroying a barn at the 6428 E. 300 North property of Gregory Wright and Michael White’s home across the road at 6137 E. 300 North.
Matt White, Michael’s brother, who grew up in the home that was hit Friday, watched the storm from a distance.
“It was a big funnel cloud,” he said, noting that his own house had been hit by a tornado in 2007.
“This was devastating here,” he continued, pointing across the road to the Wright property. “It physically pulled posts out of the ground. They’re 4 foot deep and square. … And that building’s been there since I was a kid.”
The Wrights were in the process of trying to account for livestock shortly after the storm.
The roof of at least one building was ripped off at Fort Recovery Lumber Company, 2550 Wabash Road, just north of the village.
The storm skirted the north side and east sides of Fort Recovery, continuing a line of damage from near the intersection of Fort Recovery-Minster Road and St. Peter Road southeast toward Fox Road and Township Line Road.
Pieces of twisted siding, pink fiberglass insulation and other debris was strewn across miles and miles of fields stretching from where the tornado first touched down in Jay County deep into Mercer County.
Sheryle Kuhn, administrative assistant at the Mercer County Emergency Management Agency, noted the storm downed multiple power lines, trees and farm outbuildings, along with damaging about four or five homes.
“I think everybody took cover,” Kuhn said. “We were pretty fortunate there were no injuries.”
Within about an hour of the tornado blowing through the county, family, friends and neighbors were already descending to help the clean-up process get underway. They arrived with front-end loaders to help move the debris and livestock trailers to haul it away. Others came to drop off water, help with the debris or load moving trucks.
Though the Brunswicks are currently on vacation, neighbors were there working Friday to cover the exposed house.
Matt Minnich estimated at least 80 people came out to his home in the aftermath to offer their assistance. He noted his family will be moving into a home his parents built recently until further notice.
“The house doesn’t bother me,” he said. “Instead of being stressed out about the fact that, you know, it’s all tore up, I would say that I’m more moved by the fact that I live in a neighborhood and community that showed up (to help) … that means more than anything.”
It was at 3:38 p.m. Friday that Jay County Sheriff’s Office sent out a message warning of a severe storm with 60-mph winds and possible large hail. Mercer, Blackford and Delaware counties sent out similar messages about the same time.
Friday’s tornado crossed the path of the last such storm that caused severe damage in Jay County. That 2017 tornado traveled northeast from the Dunkirk area, crossing U.S. 27 just south of county road 300 North and leaving a series of homes damaged along the county road 300 north corridor. It continued on to Celina, Ohio, where it destroyed a Dollar General store.
The funnel cloud Friday came within about a quarter-mile of the Carl and Laurie Muhlenkamp house at 3707 N. 550 East that the 2017 storm lifted and moved off of its foundation. The Muhlenkamp’s son, Austin, was at home for that storm. This time, Laurie and her daughter Briana saw the tornado blow through.
“We saw it swirling, a black circle over there by Dennis and Theresa’s place,” Laurie added, pointing northwest toward another Muhlenkamp couple’s home at 4202 N. 550 East. “We went to the basement then.”
She said she did not receive a tornado warning until she and her daughter were already in their basement.
Shortly after the storm, Mercer County Electric was reporting about 3,000 customers without service. Jay County REMC on its Facebook page said it was “experiencing widespread outages due to the extensive storm damage.”
The tornado destroyed at least half a dozen homes, including several in the area of county roads 450 East and 500 North. A complete accounting of the damage was not available at press time.
The one piece of good news as of Friday evening was that the residents of Jay and Mercer counties escaped the tornado unscathed. No injuries were reported in Jay or Mercer counties as of 8 p.m. Friday.
“No injuries, thankfully, have been reported,” said Amy Blakely, director of Jay County Emergency Management Agency, adding that her agency, Jay Emergency Medical Service, Jay County Highway Department, local law enforcement and others were all in the area working to get a handle on the situation. “We’ve got people out trying to assess how bad things are and get things clear.”
The hardest hit location based on initial observations was in the area of county roads 450 East and 500 North.
“That’s apparently the worst of it,” Blakely said.
Homes with severe damage in that area included those owned by Keith and Melissa Brunswick at 5396 N. 450 East — it no longer had a roof — and Matt and Betsy Minnich just to the south at 5212 N. 450 East.
At the time the twister hit, Betsy Minnich and her children were 2 miles south helping her parents with a garage sale. Matt was at Minnich Poultry instructing other workers to buckle down for the storm.
“We could see the tornado,” Matt Minnich said. “We saw the debris flying, (I) didn’t think it was mine. Apparently it was.”
In the aftermath, the Minnichs walked over broken glass, loose bricks and other pieces of their house scattered across the yard in order to assess the damage. Their outbuilding was flattened, half of their home’s roof was missing and their garage was reduced to nothing but a shell of strand boards and concrete.
The tornado also hit an unoccupied building at 5183 N. 450 East owned by H&G Agriculture Holdings. Grain bins and outbuildings lay in the field or around the property.
Several buildings were wiped out at the Edward and Paula Davidson property at 5006 E. 500 North.
A series of utility poles was also torn down along the east side of county road 450 East north of county road 500 North.
Trent Muhlenkamp said his wife Kelsi first saw the weather taking a bad turn from their home at 6263 E. Indiana 67.
“I didn’t think much of it at the time,” he said. “Then I kind of got up and looked. It’s like, ‘OK, it’s time to go to the basement.’ And then, it was just like that, it was done.”
The storm continued on a generally southeast trajectory, destroying a barn at the 6428 E. 300 North property of Gregory Wright and Michael White’s home across the road at 6137 E. 300 North.
Matt White, Michael’s brother, who grew up in the home that was hit Friday, watched the storm from a distance.
“It was a big funnel cloud,” he said, noting that his own house had been hit by a tornado in 2007.
“This was devastating here,” he continued, pointing across the road to the Wright property. “It physically pulled posts out of the ground. They’re 4 foot deep and square. … And that building’s been there since I was a kid.”
The Wrights were in the process of trying to account for livestock shortly after the storm.
The roof of at least one building was ripped off at Fort Recovery Lumber Company, 2550 Wabash Road, just north of the village.
The storm skirted the north side and east sides of Fort Recovery, continuing a line of damage from near the intersection of Fort Recovery-Minster Road and St. Peter Road southeast toward Fox Road and Township Line Road.
Pieces of twisted siding, pink fiberglass insulation and other debris was strewn across miles and miles of fields stretching from where the tornado first touched down in Jay County deep into Mercer County.
Sheryle Kuhn, administrative assistant at the Mercer County Emergency Management Agency, noted the storm downed multiple power lines, trees and farm outbuildings, along with damaging about four or five homes.
“I think everybody took cover,” Kuhn said. “We were pretty fortunate there were no injuries.”
Within about an hour of the tornado blowing through the county, family, friends and neighbors were already descending to help the clean-up process get underway. They arrived with front-end loaders to help move the debris and livestock trailers to haul it away. Others came to drop off water, help with the debris or load moving trucks.
Though the Brunswicks are currently on vacation, neighbors were there working Friday to cover the exposed house.
Matt Minnich estimated at least 80 people came out to his home in the aftermath to offer their assistance. He noted his family will be moving into a home his parents built recently until further notice.
“The house doesn’t bother me,” he said. “Instead of being stressed out about the fact that, you know, it’s all tore up, I would say that I’m more moved by the fact that I live in a neighborhood and community that showed up (to help) … that means more than anything.”
It was at 3:38 p.m. Friday that Jay County Sheriff’s Office sent out a message warning of a severe storm with 60-mph winds and possible large hail. Mercer, Blackford and Delaware counties sent out similar messages about the same time.
Friday’s tornado crossed the path of the last such storm that caused severe damage in Jay County. That 2017 tornado traveled northeast from the Dunkirk area, crossing U.S. 27 just south of county road 300 North and leaving a series of homes damaged along the county road 300 north corridor. It continued on to Celina, Ohio, where it destroyed a Dollar General store.
The funnel cloud Friday came within about a quarter-mile of the Carl and Laurie Muhlenkamp house at 3707 N. 550 East that the 2017 storm lifted and moved off of its foundation. The Muhlenkamp’s son, Austin, was at home for that storm. This time, Laurie and her daughter Briana saw the tornado blow through.
“We saw it swirling, a black circle over there by Dennis and Theresa’s place,” Laurie added, pointing northwest toward another Muhlenkamp couple’s home at 4202 N. 550 East. “We went to the basement then.”
She said she did not receive a tornado warning until she and her daughter were already in their basement.
Shortly after the storm, Mercer County Electric was reporting about 3,000 customers without service. Jay County REMC on its Facebook page said it was “experiencing widespread outages due to the extensive storm damage.”
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