Close Call

I was scouting north of our place Wednesday.  The radar was clean when I left but within 2 hours, it started raining the entire 60 miles!  It's a good thing I had my gum boots with me because I sure needed them.

There was still standing water in some counties from earlier rains.  It was so nice here Monday and Tuesday, I thought I would catch some fields before they got too wet.  Wrong!

It got hot and muggy about 2 pm and I finished up my scouting report.  I headed home and went about my business until I looked at the Café at dinner time and there was a report about a tornado in Cedarville!  I knew Weimer Road was close to my brother's place and one of his neighbors lived there.

Sure enough it was his neighbor Roger whom I have talked with about no-till farming before.  The tornado flattened his place, probably $200,000 damage.  My brother said 40,000 bushel of corn was spewed out of the big bin and there were other bins damaged or destroyed.

"Seven people had to be helped out of a house in Cedarville after a tornado destroyed it, a second house and several other buildings Wednesday afternoon.  The National Weather Service will be in Cedarville this morning to survey the storm damage to determine the category of the tornado.

Xenia City Manager Brent Merriman said fire and medic crews from Xenia were dispatched to reports of storm damage at Weimer and Barber roads. Skywarn weather spotters confirmed that a tornado touched down in that area at about 6:12 p.m.

According to Cedarville police, the seven were in the basement when the storm hit. All had to be extricated and all are OK, police said.

One of the houses destroyed belonged to Roger Dobbins, 71. The other was his daughter's. They all were trapped inside for nearly 30 minutes after the tornado. Dobbins said he was watching coverage of the storm on WHIO-TV Channel 7 until his satellite went out at his home in the 4200 block of Barber Road.

"I saw it coming directly toward us," he said. "I could hear a lot of racket. My ears popped."
Dobbins said he and six other people were in the basement: his wife, daughter, a friend of his daughter's, and her three children.

More than a dozen fire trucks and emergency vehicles were sent to the Dobbins farm.
Corey Atley, a resident who observed damage near his home outside Cedarville, said a nearby silo also was severely damaged and a hog barn was flattened. Atley estimated the tornado left a swath of debris four miles long, 200 to 300 yards wide.

Cedarville police Chief Chris Gillaugh said, "For me, actually seeing the thing was unbelievable. You watch it on television and you see them on television all the time. But to see it and actually know that it's destroying places and things, you have a whole other respect for it."

I have met most of the people in this story.  As far as I know, everyone is OK but that was close call.  My brother took this picture in his front yard. 

We pray for Roger's clean up and all the neighbors there.  We give thanks no one was seriously hurt.  It has been rated an F3 with 145 MPH winds.

Ed