Storm damages homes in Indianapolis, outskirts

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INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — A tornado-producing storm that hit
central Indiana on Tuesday damaged several homes in Indianapolis and its
outskirts, downed power lines and uprooted trees, authorities said.
It
was one of several thunderstorms that sprang up in southwestern Indiana
near Terre Haute and moved northeast toward Indianapolis, becoming more
severe along the way. No injuries were reported. National Weather
Service meteorologist Mike Ryan said the tornado struck in the afternoon
in Hendricks County just southwest of Indianapolis and caused extensive
damage to at least three homes.
The twister, an EF1 on the 0-to-5
enhanced Fujita scale with an estimated wind speed of 100 mph, tossed a
camper onto the roof of a home and destroyed the camper and about half
of the roof, according to a storm survey team’s report. Strong winds
from the storm also damaged more than 200 cars at an auto auction site,
the weather service said.
The storm hit as 20 people were
receiving chimney sweeping training in Plainfield, about 15 miles
southwest of Indianapolis. Tom Spalding, a spokesman for the Chimney
Safety Institute of America, said weather alerts were sent to the
trainees’ cellphones and what looked like a funnel cloud appeared in the
distance.
"I didn’t realize what I was looking at, frankly," said
Spalding, who used his phone to snap a photo of the dark cloud. "I saw a
big, grayish, ugly blob — very violent-looking, very dark — move across
the sky."
The winds and heavy rain headed into Indianapolis,
damaging houses on the city’s west side and uprooting several trees,
including some that fell on cars.
Three to four homes received
roof damage and several others had siding taken off or windows knocked
out, Wayne Township Fire Capt. Mike Pruitt said.
"We were
fortunate that a lot of people had gone to work and the people that were
home had received extensive warnings," Pruitt said, referring to the
lack of injuries.
The city of Indianapolis opened an operations
center to organize its response to the storm, Homeland Security Director
Gary Coons said.
"Something hit here. Whether it was
straight-line winds or a tornado, something with a lot of wind hit
here," Coons told WRTV. "We’re just trying to assess and see how much
damage there is."
Indianapolis Power and Light Co. reported more
than 1,700 customers without service after the storm struck in a second
straight day of storm-related outages in the city. Duke Energy reported
nearly 800 customers without power in Greenwood, a southern suburb.
Heavy rain accompanying the storms prompted the weather service to issue flash flood warnings for much of
central Indiana.
In
Cloverdale, about 40 miles southwest of Indianapolis, 2 to 4 inches of
water flowed across state Route 42, the weather service said.
___
Associated
Press journalists Charles D. Wilson and Mike Conroy in Indianapolis and
Tom Coyne in South Bend contributed to this report.

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