About 10 minutes before Jefferson Street Pub was set to close Wednesday night, the storm hit.
By 9 p.m., the pub’s awning on Water Street tore off the historic building and started banging against the windows, owner Karen Duckworth said.
“It kept banging against the windows and the door and I thought it was going to break all the windows,” Duckworth said. “We went down to the basement and all you could hear was (what sounded) like bottles against the windows. When it let up, we took a look outside and there was all this debris. I thought it was one of the other buildings that had collapsed, but that was my roof.”
Severe storms with high winds, hail and possible tornadoes swept across the Midwest and caused damage to dozens of homes and businesses in parts of Indiana, authorities said. Locally, the storm toppled power lines and uprooted trees across the county and damaged buildings in Franklin.
[sc:text-divider text-divider-title=”Story continues below gallery” ]
Click here to purchase photos from this galleryA few injuries were reported following Wednesday night’s storms and the threat of more severe weather was forecast for the coming days throughout much of the United States.
The National Weather Service in Indianapolis said it planned to work with emergency managers on Thursday to determine the need for any storm surveys.
It was unclear Thursday if the storms produced any tornadoes in Johnson County, but weather service officials said they were sending a team out Thursday evening to assess the damage. Despite the cleanup that was underway across the county Thursday, weather surveyors can still accurately determine the level of a storm and whether it was a tornado hours after it would have touched down, said David Beachler, an meteorologist based in Indianapolis.
“We always try to gather all the data and observations from emergency management (agencies), pictures and our own assessment before we ever make any classification as to what happened,” Beachler said. “We are going over it with a fine-tooth comb.”
Franklin gets brunt of local damage
A few buildings in downtown Franklin suffered structural damage, the most significant being the Jefferson Street Pub at the corner of Water and Jefferson streets in the heart of downtown, said Kirby Cochran, Franklin police chief.
“The big thing is there were no injuries,” Cochran said. “I think what saved us was the fact that everyone is staying home. On a regular night, that place would have had a lot of patrons and we would’ve had a different story today.”
Debris from the pub’s roof flooded downtown streets Wednesday night, and littered the top of several nearby buildings, including the courthouse annexes.
Local street crews worked overnight to remove debris from downtown streets and buildings, Cochran said.
Blocks away, the roof of a condominium at 100 N. Home Ave. collapsed, he said.
“Originally, we thought we had some entrapment in that building, but we did not,” Cochran said. “People just didn’t want to leave because of the stay-at-home order, believe it or not.”
Power was in and out Thursday across Franklin while utility crews worked to repair damaged power lines throughout the city, he said.
More than 1,000 lost power
The storm caused widespread power outages. About 1,000 Duke Energy customers were without power for more than 16 hours before it came back on around 2 p.m. Thursday.
Areas with the most outages included parts of Greenwood, south of the high school, Whiteland, in the Oakville subdivision, New Whiteland, just south of Tracey Road, and parts of downtown Franklin, according to an outage map on the company’s website.
Winds knocked down 12 poles carrying power lines on County Road 75 West at Whiteland Road, which was closed for several hours. Some of the poles snapped while others fell, said Tim Hogue, director of operations at Johnson County REMC.
Crews isolated that section of power lines and restored power to those who used it, Hogue said.
“Straight-line winds basically did a domino effect on that stretch of poles, because it was one right after the other,” he said. “That was the most damage, and it’s been the most time consuming.”
Line crews began working on the damage around 9:30 p.m. and were still working Thursday afternoon, he said. About 90 Johnson County REMC customers were impacted.
High winds Thursday threw a wrench in those repairs, Hogue said.
“A lot of times, you can get a line up and a limb decides to fall, and it could take the line back down,” he said. “It kind of feels like you’re spinning your wheels.”
Damage widespread during storm
Fire departments across the county responded to several fires and damage reports Wednesday night. Bargersville Community Fire Department responded to two structure fires—one in Bargersville and one in Trafalgar—during the storm, said Mike Pruitt, Bargersville’s assistant fire chief.
A fire broke out at a Trafalgar garage containing antique tractors and tools, causing about $30,000 worth of damage, Pruitt said. A cause had not been determined Thursday afternoon, but it was likely due to the storm, he said.
The fire department also responded to a call from a man trapped in his car in the parking lot of a car wash at State Roads 135 and 144, near downtown Bargersville. The driver ran over power lines and his car was wrapped in them. He escaped with no injuries, Pruitt said.
“When we go on a call for a power line, we examine if it’s an immediate threat to a structure, or if there is a risk of someone walking over a line,” he said.
More than 30 911 calls came in Wednesday night about power lines and trees down in Bargersville, Edinburgh and Franklin. A stop light was reported damaged in Greenwood, according to the county’s 911 call log.
The Greenwood Fire Department did not respond to any significant damage calls aside from fallen power lines and trees, Chief Darin Hoggatt said.
“We were very fortunate,” he said.
‘Still just in shock’
Officials on Thursday continued to survey the damage in downtown Franklin.
Madison Street, between Main Street and Home Avenue, was closed Thursday due to significant damage at First Presbyterian Church, Cochran said.
City officials were concerned strong winds Thursday would topple the church’s steeple, which suffered damage.
Nearby, a fallen tree wrecked a house in the 200 block of E. South Street.
The tree pummeled the roof during the Wednesday night storm. Branches covered the entrance, which was barely visible. Parts of what used to be walls were scattered around the front lawn.
Steve Cox, owner of Cox’s Tree Service, was in between calls for other repairs when he passed by the house to observe the damage. He had other calls in Franklin to get to, and was in the midst of 21 repair jobs to remove branches and limbs that had fallen on houses, driveways and cars in Franklin, Bargersville, Greenwood and Mooresville.
The damage to the house on South Street, however, was worse than anything else he’d seen, Cox said.
“It’s probably been a couple of years, but it was about the same time; spring brings this every time,” Cox said of previous storms. “We like to take care of everybody we can. We’ll work 24/7 to have everything taken care of.”
Across the street from Girls Inc. of Johnson County, on Home Avenue, branches and limbs littered the sidewalk outside a small condo building.
The storm removed bricks and stones, which were previously on the exterior of the building, and damaged the roof. As an Express Restorations employee cleaned up the wooden debris, Dan Diersing, who owned one of the condos, surveyed the damage. Clean-up crews had been at the scene since 8 a.m. Thursday, he said.
“Part of the roof came off and knocked off the bricks and the stones,” Diersing said. “They’re going to tarp (the roof) sometime this morning so it won’t get rained in and then the insurance company will go from there.”
Back at the Jefferson Street Pub, Duckworth tip-toed around dirty water on the floor of the restaurant Thursday morning, surveying the interior damage caused by a leak from the damaged roof. The restaurant, which was already limited to carry-out service due to the coronavirus pandemic, will be closed for a few weeks as insurance claims are evaluated and repairs take place.
Still, she intends to keep the long-time business up and running, she said.
“With this, I’m still just in shock,” Duckworth said, standing inside the restaurant. “I don’t really even know where to start or what to do.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
