Tornado Hits Eaton County

Lansing - The National Weather Service is confirming a tornado ripped through parts of Eaton and Ingham counties late Friday.

The tornado made a path 200 to 300 yards wide and 6 and a half miles long. Around 15 homes were seriously damaged. The National Weather Service will determine if it was an EF-2 or EF-3 tornado sometime today.

The bulk of the damage occurred near between Charlotte and Potterville, near Vermontville Highway and Otto Road, as a line of severe thunderstorms blasted through the area between 4 p.m. and 5 p.m. A touchdown also reportedly occurred nearly M-99 and Interstate 96 in Delhi Township, where several trailers were damaged.

Dispatchers also reported downed power lines, uprooted trees and limited flooding across the region. Injuries also were reported.

Reports from the field

BENTON TOWNSHIP --When Donna Bailey saw things flying past the window of her home on Benton Road, she hustled the six kids in her daycare down to the basement.

Neighbor Russell Beals watched the tornado touch down, looked away for a second, and then looked again at the Bailey house.

"I called 911 as soon as I saw the house was gone," he said. "It was gone."

Bailey and the kids, ranging in age from 9 months to 7 years of age, emerged from the basement in good shape, but the house was destroyed. Pieces of siding were embedded into the yard, and a gaping hole in the wall revealed the living room and fireplace mantel with pictures still on it.

Another nearby home also was destroyed.

-- Rachel Greco

DELHI TOWNSHIP - Trees were uprooted and siding was damaged on more than a dozen mobile homes in the Stonegate Mobile Home Community on Eaton Rapids Highway in Delhi Township.

Several trees were uprooted, including one which landed on the back bedroom of a mobile home. Delhi Township fire officials said no injuries were reported.

Melissa Zimmerman, 44, said it got dark and the wind started howling. It was as if came out of nowhere.

"I've never seen anything like it and I hope I see anything like it again," she said.

-- Tom Lambert

LANSING - Rich Colby and one of his employees had just pulled into the parking lot of Fazoli's on South Cedar Street at about 5 p.m. when the storm hit and hit hard.

?All of a sudden it got white and the wind started whirling and everything was flying,? Colby said. Including the truck they were riding in.

?Signs from across the street flew into our truck, smashed our truck, threw it up against the building,? he said. ?The driver had his foot on the brake, and it wouldn't stop.?

Colby, president of A-OK Heating, Cooling, Plumbing and Electrical in Lansing, and his employee, Brad Redi, of Lansing, were unhurt but understandably shaken.

Denise Rademacher and her six-year-old son, Micah, had been sitting inside the restaurant when pieces that had torn off a billboard across the street ? the same sign that had hit Colby's truck - came smashing through the restaurant's windows.

?It was the only building (hit by the tornado),? Rademacher, ?the only building my son was in.?

Colby said the winds tore part of the roof off the Fazoli's building and downed dozens of trees nearby.

The storm also hit power lines in the area, setting a tree on fire and apparently causing an electrical transformer on 5700 block of Kaynorth Road to emit a series of explosions shortly before 6 p.m.

The Lansing Fire Department was on the scene shortly after 6 p.m.

-- Matt Miller and Brendan Bouffard

Nearly 4,300 customers in south Lansing and hundreds in Charlotte lost power in Friday's storm, according to local utilities.

Consumer's Energy had nearly 300 calls as of 5 p.m.

"We're getting some storm activity just hitting right now," said Consumers Energy spokesman Terry DeDoes.

The Charlotte, Cochran and Potterville substations all had power failures in their areas.

In Lansing, Board of Water and Light spokesman Mark Nixon said crews already are working on restoring power. He could not estimate when power would be restored.

-- Kathleen Lavey

DELHI TWP - Len Lumley was sitting in his living room in the Stonegate Mobile Home Community when he saw what looked to be a tornado touch down.

"I was looking over and his awning (pointing to a neighbor) and his awning (pointing to another) and a roof came spinning by."

Though Lumley's house was largely unharmed, some trailer homes sustained major damage. A tree uprooted and fell through the roof of one house, while porch awnings and siding lay strewn about on the wet grass.

Resident Burton Aves, 50, took his son Steven Pickell, 8, and his daughter Emily, 7, into their trailer's laundry room when the storm swept through. He threw sheets and pillows in the room to cushion the children from whatever debris might fall through the roof.

"My boy Steven, he was shaking, he just didn't know what was going on," Aves said. Aves and his children escaped unharmed.

Delhi Township Assistant Fire Chief Pat Brown said only minor injuries were reported. Brown asked any township residents who had been displaced to call 676-4052.

-- Derek Wallbank

VERMONTVILLE - Fire chief Monte O'Dell said there were three power lines and several trees downed in the Vermontville area due to the storm, but no injuries have been reported.

?It looks like most of the storm hit to the south and west of us in Charlotte and Potterville,? O'Dell said.

-- Derek Wallbank

CHARLOTTE - The municipal building underwent a temporary evacuation today after weather forecasts indicated a tornado was heading in the city's direction. About a dozen employees and local residents sought shelter in the basement as flickering lights hinted at the storm's imminent arrival.

?Hey, there's Scrabble over there in the cabinet. Anybody want to play,? said Amy Schoonover, Charlotte Director of Public Works, trying to liven up the mood.

The evacuation was called at around 4:10 p.m. and was lifted shortly before 4:40 p.m.

-- Aman Ali

DIMONDALE - Resident Kristen Warner, a 22-year-old learned of the tornado after checking the weather on the Internet.

Fleeing to the basement with her mother, Warner could hear the storm passing by outside.

"All the sudden the sirens were going off. we went in the basement and the sky was just black," she said. "It passed pretty quickly. When we came out there was random debris falling from the sky, chunks of housing insulation."

-- Brendan Bouffard

Lansing State Journal