Tornadoes damage Lebanon, Kokomo buildings

9:41 A.M. Update

Utility crews worked to restore power to thousands of Hoosiers on Monday as Gov. Mike Pence prepared for a helicopter tour of Indiana communities hardest hit by tornadoes and severe thunderstorms on Sunday.

Homeowners and businesses across the state are assessing the damage and planning their next steps.

Pence plans to visit Kokomo, Lafayette and Washington, while the National Weather Services was dispatching three survey teams Monday to determine if storm damage was caused by tornadoes or high winds from thunderstorms.

Sen. Joe Donnelly, D-Ind., will join Pence for the Kokomo tour.

Sunday’s storms injured at least three people and cut power to tens of thousands.

At 9:15 a.m., Duke Energy reported 25,668 customers without power across the state. That was a slight increase from the 6:30 a.m. report. The greatest concentration of Duke outages remained in Tippecanoe County (Lafayette), with 12,605, and Howard County (Kokomo), with 6,996. At 9:20 a.m. today, IPL reported 4,883 customers without power across Marion County.

Indiana Michigan Power reported more than 26,000 customers without power, including 12,000 in South Bend and another 5,900 in Fort Wayne.

Northern Indiana Public Service Co. crews were still working to restore power to about 11,500 customers after wind gusts of up to 86 mph swept northwestern Indiana, damaging three transmission towers and snapping more than 120 utility poles.

The hardest-hit area appeared to be Kokomo, 60 miles north of Indianapolis.

Kokomo and Howard County lifted their states of emergency at 6 a.m. Traffic is still banned from storm-damaged areas.

Earlier

Anxious Hoosiers were sent scanning the skies or running for cover Sunday as a massive band of severe thunderstorms and numerous reported tornadoes swept through, bringing powerful winds that snapped power lines, uprooted trees, flipped cars and leveled buildings.

No serious injuries were reported in the Indianapolis metro area.

The most visible signs of storm damage in Indianapolis were seen in the neighborhood of Irvington on the Eastside. The historic post office, built in 1903 on the corner of Washington Street and Ritter Avenue, was demolished by strong winds and heavy rains.

"We had just acquired the building in December and taken out all the interior of the building, gutted it, and solidified the structure a little bit," said Megan Bennett, a volunteer with the Irvington Development Organization.

“Then bad weather comes along and blows it down. The reinforcement steel was set to be delivered tomorrow so it's really heart-breaking.”

While sheets of rain, power outages and some flooding battered Indianapolis, the city and its surrounding suburbs were mostly spared from the brunt of the damage. Lebanon and Kokomo were among the hardest-hit Indiana areas during a storm which spawned nearly two dozen tornadoes in the state to the west, north and northeast and also blew through Missouri, Kentucky and Illinois, leading to dozens of tornado reports, injuries and some deaths.

The western Illinois town of Washington was one of the worst-hit areas, where the storm flattened houses and sent cars flying through the air. At least one person in the town was killed; another two people died when a tornado struck their farmhouse in rural southern Illinois. Two others perished in Massac county in the far southern part of the state, said Patti Thompson of the Illinois Emergency Management Agency. She did not provide details.

In Indianapolis, Bennett was one of several dozen people standing at the corner of Washington Street and Ritter Avenue looking at the remains of the Irvington building. Only two of its walls were still standing, though she said she expected it would be razed later Sunday night.

The community landmark also has housed a jewelry store, a Hook’s drugstore and medical and dental offices over the years, Banning said.

By the time the storms hit Indianapolis on Sunday afternoon, many residents were already aware of the damage in Illinois, though it wasn’t a cause of worry for some.

Michael Hawkes, who lives in Downtown Indianapolis, said he knew the storms were coming, but didn’t think much of it until an hour or so before they hit.

“I didn’t have any inkling of how severe it would be,” Hawkes said.

Hawkes said he watched from inside his apartment as sheets of rain hit the city.

“It was just amazing,” he said. “The rain was so thick I could hardly see the buildings in the area.”

By late evening, Indianapolis Power & Light reported that at least 16,000 people in Marion County had lost power. But the damage was widespread across the rest of the state as well. Duke Energy, which covers much of Indiana, reported as many as 65,000 people were without power.

The Central Indiana storms produced winds of up to 82 mph, quarter-inch hail and rain totals of nearly a half-inch in 30 minutes.

A reported tornado in Lebanon injured two people in a flipped semi, damaged several businesses and houses and tossed a car in the parking lot of a Starbucks.

In Kokomo, authorities declared a state of emergency lasting until 6 a.m. Monday amid reports of leveled homes, torn-off roofs, a destroyed bank branch and blown-out windows at Kokomo Town Center, a local mall. However, no deaths were reported.

Larry Smith, director of Howard County Emergency Management, said a Christmas tree auction at the mall was called off shortly before the storms hit, though he was not sure how many people were injured before they could be evacuated.

“We’ve got ambulances there getting them out,” Smith said Sunday. “What kind of damage or how badly they’re hurt, I don’t know.”

Mount Pisgah Missionary Baptist Church in Kokomo has opened for anyone needing supplies, shelter or assistance, city officials said on Twitter.

In Lebanon, at least two people were injured, though not seriously, when wind gusts flipped an occupied semi onto I-65 near the Flying J Truck Stop, police said.

Tornadoes were spotted across that area, as well. Andy Hall, a Whitestown resident, snapped a photo of one forming on the ground about 10 minutes east of Lebanon.

“We were watching at the windows, watching to see if any tornadoes were going to form,” Hall said, when he saw a funnel cloud touch down just north of his house.

“It was moving extremely fast across the field,” he said.

Indiana Gov. Mike Pence said 12 counties reported either tornadoes or damage after the initial line of storms had traveled midway across Indiana.

Pence told The Associated Press that he plans to visit the hardest-hit communities of Kokomo, Lafayette and Washington on Monday. However, he said it’s too early to know whether the state will seek federal disaster aid.

“Significant damage has been reported in Lebanon, Indiana, and Washington, Indiana,” the governor said in a telephone interview, while monitoring reports from the Emergency Operations Center of the Indiana Department of Homeland Security in downtown Indianapolis.

By 7 p.m., Indiana State Police had placed a curfew on residents of Washington, Ind., preventing them from walking around as officials surveyed the damage and responded to possible emergencies. The National Weather Service reported that a tornado damaged several houses in the Southern Indiana town.

About 30 miles northeast of Kokomo, one person was injured when two or three mobile homes rolled over at the Summit Village Trailer Park, said Grant County Emergency Management Director Bruce Bender says. He said four homes have been damaged, including two extensively between Marion and the town of Sweetser.

Indiana State Police Sgt. Kim Riley says a teacher was injured when a storm heavily damaged Southwestern Middle and Grade School in southern Tippecanoe County.

“The gymnasium is basically gone” and parts of the roof had been blown off, too, Riley said.

“It’s very chaotic.”

Power outages

At 10:45 p.m. p.m. Sunday, more than 38,000 were without power, according to Duke Energy; most of those outages were in the Lafayette and Kokomo areas. In Marion County, Indianapolis Power & Light reported that about 7,200 were without power as of 10:50 p.m.; most of those were in Warren Township.

Paul Poteet, IndyStar’s Alex Campbell and the Associated Press contributed to this story.

Call Star reporter Jill Disis at (317) 444-6137. Follow her on Twitter: @jdisis