Missed us by THAT much
Last night, the village of Dexter where I live was hit by an F3 tornado. The two blue Xs are where the touchdowns occurred and the red X is where I live, less than a mile away. The upper left blue X is near the Dexter Mill. The lower right X is the neighborhood of Huron Farms.
This video was shot at about 5:30 pm by Matthew Altruda from Tree Town Sound on Ann Arbor’s 107.One FM at the Hudson Mills Metro Park. I had literally driven by that area about 20 minutes before this was taken on my way home from work (warning: lotsa swearing):
I’m told this is the earliest recorded tornado in our county. Ever.
Here are some shots I took with my iPhone this morning. My wife, Anne C. Savage, will have many GOOD photos and some panoramic images up later and I’ll put up another post with a sampling of those with links to the Full Monty at her site.
Entering the Huron Farms neighborhood (thanks to media passes), this is one of the first houses we saw:
Here are some other very heavily-impacted homes:
This street got hit HARD:
It was particularly eerie as the sun rose up through the mist. Here are some backyards. The tornado literally sheared the tops of these houses right off.
This house was literally obliterated. Gone. Right across the street, the houses were impacted but nothing even close to this.
More PHOTOS and VIDEO after the jump.
This car was sideways in the road:
State Rep. Mark Ouimet inspects the damage. He is the Representative for this area:
Here is an area between some of the homes. That boxy-looking thing is a chimney torn off the nearby house.
Here’s video of the same area between the homes. The house with the blue tarps on it belongs to people who are out of town. The spring peepers (frogs) seem completely unbothered by all the activity.
The local grocery store Busch’s stopped by to hand out water to residents and clean up crews:
The clean-up crews and insurance adjusters were all over the neighborhood:
It took me awhile to figure out what all the stuff hanging in all the tree branches was. This isn’t a bush in spring bloom with pink flowers. That’s insulation torn out of the walls and attics of homes and sprayed across the neighborhood far and wide.
Several blocks away near the Dexter Mill, the Dexter Laundromat is gone:
This is where the gas leak was last night and there is severe tree damage. Unlike us, they are still without power and probably will be for some time.
This is what trees look like when you teepee them with sheet metal from pole barn buildings:
This picture, taken last night by Anne, says it all, I think:
