Storms destroy Indiana towns in ‘worst-case’ weather scenario

HENRYVILLE, Ind. – Powerful storms leveled small towns in southern Indiana, transforming entire blocks of homes into piles of debris, tossing school buses into a home and a restaurant and causing destruction so severe it was difficult to tell what was once there.

As night fell in Henryville, dazed residents shuffled through town, some looking for relatives, while rescue workers searched the rubble for survivors. Without power, the only light in town came from cars that crawled down the streets.

From the Gulf Coast to the Great Lakes, the storms touched nearly all walks of life. A fire station was flattened. Roofs were ripped off schools. A prison fence was knocked down, and scores of homes and businesses were destroyed. At least 28 people were killed, including 14 in Indiana, 12 in Kentucky and two in Ohio. Dozens of others were hurt in the second deadly tornado outbreak this week.

It wasn’t immediately clear how many people were missing.

The threat of tornadoes was expected to last until late Friday for parts of Kentucky, Tennessee, Indiana and Ohio. Forecasters at the National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center said the massive band of storms put 10 million people at high risk of dangerous weather.

“We knew this was coming. We were watching the weather like everyone else,” said Clark County, Ind., Sheriff Danny Rodden. “This was the worst-case scenario. There’s no way you can prepare for something like this.”

In Henryville, the scene was eerie and bordered on chaotic. Cellphones and landlines were not working. Hundreds of firefighters and police zipped around town. Power lines were down and cars were flipped over. People walked down the street with shopping carts full of water and food, handing it out to whoever was in need.

Terry Brishaber said his uncle’s mobile home was gone.

“I don’t see any remnants. I don’t know where it’s at,” he said.

Aerial footage from a TV news helicopter flying over Henryville showed numerous wrecked houses, some with their roofs torn off and many surrounded by debris. The video shot by WLKY in Louisville, Ky., also showed a mangled school bus protruding from the side of a one-story building and dozens of overturned semis strewn around the smashed remains of a truck stop.

“I’m a storm chaser,” said Susie Renner, of Henryville, “and I have never been this frightened before.”

An Associated Press reporter in Henryville said the high school was destroyed and the second floor had been ripped off the middle school next door. Authorities said school was in session when the tornado hit, but there were only minor injuries there.

Classroom chairs were scattered on the ground outside, trees were uprooted and cars had huge dents from baseball-size hail.

The rural town about 20 miles north of Louisville is the home of Indiana’s oldest state forest and the birthplace of Kentucky Fried Chicken founder Col. Harland Sanders.

Forecasters at the Storm Prediction Center said the spate of storms was unusual.

“Maybe five times a year we issue what is kind of the highest risk level for us at the Storm Prediction Center,” forecaster Corey Mead said. “This is one of those days.”

Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky International Airport was closed temporarily because of debris on the runways, but one of three runways had reopened by late afternoon. A fire station was flattened and several barns were toppled in northern Kentucky across the Ohio River from the badly damaged Indiana towns.

The outbreak was also causing problems in Alabama and Tennessee where dozens of houses were damaged. It comes two days after an earlier round of storms killed 13 people in the Midwest and South.