Tornado Touches Down In Northern Macomb County
LENOX TOWNSHIP (WWJ) - It came with little warning. Tornado sirens were blaring and several homes were damaged, Wednesday, when tornado touched down in Northern Macomb County.
Lenox Township resident Gary Brohl, who lives on Place Road at 30 Mile, was home when he saw and heard it hit.
"It sounded like a turbo or something — I'd never heard this thing in my life," Brohl told WWJ's Sandra McNeil. "Swirling around...leaves and boards and limbs and trees. I said, 'It's getting nasty out! I'm goin' in the basement.'"
"It took the roof off over there. It's a pole barn... it's gone. It only took about a minute; it trashed everything," he said.
The storm also ripped off his side door that leads in from the garage, tore off his chimney, dropped it in the yard, and even moved his van a few feet, according to Brohl.
The National Weather Service confirmed it was an EF-0 tornado that touched down on Place Road between 29 and 30 Mile roads just after 2 p.m. Winds of 75 miles-per-hour were registered, and the tornado was about a quarter-mile long.
There were no injuries reported, but Lenox Township Supervisor Ron Trombley said four homes sustained siding and shingle damage — and camper flipped over.
"The winds came first, lightening, and then we had severe rain," Trombley said.
Jessica Fiebelkorn, who lives next door to Brohl, had just pulled into her driveway when the storm arrived.
"It looked like a tornado, it did," she told WWJ's Sandra McNeil. "It had things swirling around...like, it was more translucent. It was just wind going in a circle, and it was wide."
Macomb County Executive Mark Hackel told WWJ that a number of county personnel spotted the twister.
Fire crews were going door-to-door to assess the damage; and Hackel said officials would be looking at the data.
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