RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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See the full story · 2 sourcesA person died in a suspected weather-related house explosion, a 4-year-old boy was killed when a tree fell on his home in Indiana, and another person died in Ohio as furious storms moved through the Midwest on Tuesday, officials said. Two of the deaths were in Indiana, where a home in Portage exploded and a fire broke out around 12:20 p.m. and where a child died when a tree fell on his bedroom about 3:30 p.m. in Jennings County, according to police. “Contributions are probably wind and the storms that came through this county earlier today,” Jennings County Chief Sheriff’s Deputy Cody Low said about the child’s death in Geneva Township. Another person was killed in Ohio. Gov. Mike DeWine said that a person died in Roseville and that emergency response crews could not reach them. In Portage, Indiana, a city about 30 miles southeast of Chicago, damage from the severe weather and the number of trees blocking roads also delayed firefighters in the house fire there, officials said. Police Capt. Rob Maynard, who said at a news conference that he has lived in Portage for 50 years, called the storms “probably the most severe weather event that any of us here can remember.” “When this call came in, everything was breaking free,” Fire Chief Chris Crail said at a news conference. Finding a path to the location with the number of trees and power lines down was difficult, he said. Police Chief Mike Candiano said there were so many trees blocking roads that several officers parked a mile away and ran toward the home to try to respond. “It seemed that every road had a tree down,” he said. Weather gusts in the Midwest were reported at more than 80 mph Tuesday. Sixteen people at a prison in Grafton, Ohio, were transported to outside hospitals after lightning struck as inmates returned from an evening meal, the state Department of Rehabilitation and Correction said. One of them was transported by medical helicopter, it said. In Illinois, there were two confirmed tornadoes near Chicago, the National Weather Service said: one in southern Cook County and a second in eastern Will County. Both caused damage consistent with EF1 tornadoes, it said. Over 1 million electricity customers across Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky were without power Tuesday evening, according to the tracking website poweroutage.us. Most of them were in Ohio and Indiana, according to the site. Utility provider AEP said the Columbus, Ohio, area experienced gusts of more than 80 mph and trees falling on power lines. It said it had more than 2,000 workers trying to restore electricity, including crews from other states. Response teams have witnessed “disaster-like conditions” in Columbus, Ohio’s most populated city, Mayor Andrew Ginther said at a news conference after a first round of storms hit Tuesday morning. Ginther said power could be out for days. “I want to encourage everybody to plan on a very different next couple of days and rest of the week,” Ginther said. “Things are not going to be fully restored and back to normal later today or tomorrow, the day after that.” The weather service office serving Chicago and the greater region warned Tuesday of possible 100 mph winds and urged people in Porter County, where Portage is, to seek shelter immediately. Portage Mayor Austin Bonta signed a declaration of emergency and said roads were impassable Tuesday. Video taken in the Portage area showed a trailer on a train, which did not appear to be moving, getting pushed over by the wind as material described as being from a roof blew all around. In Frankfort, Illinois, the home where Tammy McKee lives with her elderly mother was a total loss after what is suspected to be a weather-related fire Tuesday. Fire officials at the scene said the home is believed either to have been struck by lightning or to have ignited after power lines were blown into it. McKee said she heard a “big boom, bang, like we’ve never heard before — it was so loud.” An electricity transformer had blown off a pole and landed on the roof, she said. At first unaware of the fire, McKee smelled smoke — and then there was a lot of it. “I was like, ‘We’ve got to go,’” McKee said. A frontal boundary moving across the north-central U.S. created a risk for damaging thunderstorms in parts of the Midwest and the Ohio Valley, the weather service said in a forecast earlier Tuesday. In Ohio, DeWine signed a proclamation declaring an emergency in Perry and Muskingum counties, which are east and southeast of Columbus, because of flooding. His office said there have been some water rescues and people evacuated from their homes.
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