At least one tornado touched down in Michigan as part of a series of severe storms with gusts of up to 75 mph that toppled trees, ripped roofs off buildings and killed five people while leaving hundreds of thousands of customers without power, officials said.
The National Weather Service confirmed on Friday that an EF-1 tornado struck the western edge of nearby Livingston County from Ingham County on Thursday night with gusts of up to 90 mph.
After entering Livingston County, initial reports showed the tornado was on the ground for a mile or less before “weakening and lifting,” said Dave Gurney, a meteorologist with the weather service’s office in Oakland County’s White Lake Township.
A 21-year-old woman and two girls, ages 1 and 3, are dead after a two-vehicle crash in west Michigan that rained Thursday night, the Kent County Sheriff’s Office said.
“Two vehicles were heading towards each other. One flies in the water It was occupied by four people,” Sergeant Eric Brunner told WZZM-TV.
A 22-year-old Cowan man, who was driving a car carrying a Cowan woman and two other girls, was seriously injured when his car collided with an SUV, the sheriff’s office said. The driver sustained minor injuries.
A tree fell on a home in Lansing, the state capital, killing one person Thursday night. Lansing Police Department spokesman Jordan Gulkis said Lansing State Journal Firefighters extricated one person from the home, but the man was pronounced dead at the hospital.
In nearby Ingham County, where there was a report of a possible tornado, the sheriff’s office said Friday that one person died and several others were seriously injured after more than 25 vehicles were severely damaged on Interstate 96.
Paul Sancia / AB
Trees were uprooted and some roofs collapsed. Several roads were closed due to downed trees and power poles.
The weather service office in Grand Rapids, west Michigan, said officials will conduct damage surveys Friday for a suspected tornado in Kent County.
As of 1:30 p.m. local time Friday, about 460,000 customers were without power in Michigan and about 193,000 in Ohio. Poweroutage.us website.
In Southfield, a northern Detroit suburb of Oakland County, Mukitu Perry said she was in her farmhouse around 9:30 Thursday night when a large section of a neighbor’s tree fell and sounded “like a train coming.”
The tree came to rest across Perry’s vehicle and front yard, uprooting power lines and downing his driveway and at least one other vehicle, leaving Perry and his neighbors without power.
“I can’t get out of my driveway. I can’t go anywhere,” Perry said Friday morning. “We’re not in power, and it’s very frustrating.”
Wayne County Executive Warren Evans declared a state of emergency Friday in Michigan’s largest county, which includes Detroit, due to power outages, flooding, downed trees and power lines and storm debris.
The county warned residents to avoid any contact with several rivers as municipalities released partially or fully untreated sewage into various waterways due to flooding.
In Macomb County, northeast of Detroit, several thousand basements in Eastpointe and St. Clair Shores survived the flooding, as stormwater and sewage were diverted to the lake through an emergency bypass system, Public Works Commissioner Candice Miller said. The bypass has only been used three times since 2017, but was used twice this week.
“Obviously, these storms have become our new normal,” Miller said. “It’s like a tropical storm, and the government and residents should make appropriate preparations whenever possible.”
Canton Township, west of Detroit and home to about 100,000 people, suffered flooding in its downtown business district earlier this week. Later Thursday night the storms “produced at least two heavy wind tornadoes, if not tornadoes,” said Town Supervisor Anne Marie Graham-Hudak.
“Some of our parks have been destroyed,” he said, adding that the township had received calls from 200 residents about flooding in their basements.
Part of the roof of an adult foster care facility near Williamston in Ingham County collapsed.
The storm followed heavy rain on Wednesday night and dumped 5 inches (12.7 centimeters) of rain on southeastern Michigan Thursday morning, resulting in street flooding in the Detroit area, including tunnels leading to suburban Detroit Metropolitan Airport. of Romulus, officials said. Officials reopened the airport’s McNamara terminal Thursday afternoon. A severe storm formed in the western part of the state in the afternoon.
By Thursday afternoon, airport officials provided additional updates, saying access to the airport had been restored.
“Once I felt the suction, I could feel the force of it, I could feel it all shaking, I could feel the roof shaking and coming apart,” James Gale, a caregiver for 14, told WXYZ-TV. He said the ceiling was gone from a woman’s room and she was taken to the hospital. Others were taken elsewhere by buses.
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer activated the state’s Emergency Operations Center Thursday evening to provide support to affected communities “as they respond to the impacts of the flooding.”
The western parts of the United States have been flooded by heavy rains over the past few weeks Tropical Storm Hillary, and much of Central America was hit by deadly heat. In Hawaii And WashingtonEmergency crews battled the devastating wildfire.
Mike Householder / AB
