“We started out with the storm front coming in and we had two small tornadoes spin up out of there. We had some minor property damage; no personal injuries, fortunately. Obviously no deaths. We did have quite a large outage on power; Winamac was out probably until about 8 p.m. Medaryville got their power back about 7:30-ish this morning. Denham now has their power and the crews are working on finish up Ripley. Hopefully they’ll be done by 2 o’ clock this afternoon getting the power back on,” said Hoover.
Hoover said the important thing is no one was seriously hurt or killed in the storms, though many residents did report roof damage or more severe property damage caused by falling trees. He said no homes were reported to have been damaged beyond repair, though a garage in Medaryville suffered some significant damage.
Hoover said the county is now focusing on cleanup efforts as homeowners look toward repairs.
“Obviously, the cleanup from the storm. County highway was out until about 11 o’ clock last night clearing the roads, and they’re back out again today, finishing up opening up all the roads. Now it’s down to cleaning up everything that’s in your yards and doing some repairs on your homes, whether it be the roof or just getting the trees out of your yards,” Hoover said.
The worst of the storm hit the area around 3 p.m., Hoover explained. The county did not suffer from any significant flooding, though a few county roads reportedly suffered from some puddling.
Hoover said the county’s response to the event was impressive, and despite a minor hiccup with generators, overall, he said, the response was good.
“I think our firemen and our storm spotters in general responded very well. They got out and got the information back to us, what was going on, and we responded appropriately. We had some minor issues with generators, but other than that, I think everything went fairly smoothly,” Hoover explained.
Hoosiers who sustained damage caused by the severe weather can report damage here.
A link to the form is also available on the Indiana Department of Homeland Security website at in.gov/dhs. In the middle of the page under “Featured Topics,” click on “Report Damage from Severe Weather – November 17.” Individuals will be asked to provide their name, address, phone number and type of damage the property sustained. Losses can include structural damage to homes and loss of personal property.
