For the third time in as many months, at least one tornado touched down in Johnson County Sunday — cutting a path from White River Township to Clark Township.
It touched down in White River Township between 4-4:30 p.m. Sunday before moving east through areas on Greenwood’s southside to the Whiteland and New Whiteland area. Dozens of residents took photos and videos of the twister as it passed through the area, with some photos coming from as far as Franklin.
Photos and videos show funnel clouds of varying sizes in different locations across the county. It is possible multiple funnel clouds developed from the storm.
No injuries have been reported following searches of damaged structures, though there were a number of homes that collapsed or sustained some level of damage. Power lines were also downed in some areas, officials have reported.
County officials have put in place a curfew from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. in the damaged area. A shelter has been opened for residents who need shelter at Greenwood Middle School, 1584 Averitt Road, Greenwood. The EMA has had several requests for shelter before it opened at 7 p.m. Sunday, said Stephanie Sichting, county EMA director.
Storm and damage
The storm that ultimately spawned at least one funnel cloud was part of a line of storms that quickly developed and became severe west of Indianapolis. It entered Johnson County between 4 to 4:30 p.m. with hail and strong winds, said Mike Ryan, a meteorologist with the Indianapolis Forecast Office of the NWS.
A Tornado Warning was issued for Johnson County around 4:15 p.m. after radar imagery indicated it was rotating — and possibly had a tornado. The NWS began to receive reports of damage following the warning, he said.
The National Weather Service is expected to send storm survey teams to damage areas on Monday to determine the severity of the damage and what was caused by the possible twister. Once this is done, a rating on the EF scale will be issued.
The area with the most damage is in the area around State Road 135 north of Smokey Row Road and south of Stones Crossing, which is a densely populated area, said Mike Pruitt, deputy chief of the Bargersville Community Fire Department.
The most damaged area includes homes in the Kensington Grove, Golden Grove, Water’s Edge and Clary Crossing neighborhoods, as well as homes just south of Center Grove High School, Bargersville Fire Chief Eric Funkhouser said in a news conference at the Bargersville Community Fire Station. Damage in the area ranges from blown-off roof singles to total collapse of structures.
Johnson Memorial Health’s Stones Crossing Health Pavilion was damaged by the storms Sunday, causing the office located at 3000 S. State Road 135 to be closed on Monday. Patients with appointments scheduled Monday were asked to call JMH’s Franklin Family Medicine office to reschedule, a post from the hospital says.
Lingering impacts
Numerous power outages were reported in the aftermath of the storm.
Bargersville Utilities restored power to residents south of Whiteland Road within several hours. However, residents north of Whiteland Road were asked to prepare to be without power for the next 48 hours, or longer, Bargersville Town Manager Dan Cartwright said.
Johnson County REMC has also worked quickly to restore power in the path of the storm. Initially, there were almost 12,000 people without power, but that number had dropped to about 3,700 people by shortly after 8 p.m., Cartwright said.
Over 1,500 Duke Energy customers were without power Sunday evening in White River Township and New Whiteland. The utility’s outage map said power was expected to be back on between 10:30 p.m. and 11:15 p.m. Sunday.
While road closures are constantly changing, Travis Road will remain closed, except for local traffic, between Morgantown Road and Mullinix Road for the time being, Funkhouser said.
Volunteers should wait to come around until after utility workers finish cleaning up power lines. People interested in helping clean up can follow Bargersville Fire Department social media pages for updates on when and how to help, Funkhauser said.
It is important for people who don’t live in affected neighborhoods to steer clear for now, Bargersville Police Chief Todd Bertram said.
“The biggest problem we’re facing is traffic in the area,” he said. “Please stay out of the area.”
It came quickly
Kensington Grove resident Josh White was at home with his family when the storm came through Sunday. First, his electricity went out, and when he got up from his chair, he saw plywood and wood flying through the air, he said.
The tornado came through quickly, and he and his family only had seconds to react, he said.
“I saw there were storms coming in. I didn’t know there was a tornado warning,” White said. “It happened fast. I think it just started near us. We ran down to the basement, went down there for 30 seconds … Thought it would be a lot longer than it was, but in 30 seconds it was here and gone.”
White’s home had some roof damage from the storm, but this was nothing compared to other homes, he said. His parent’s home in Stonegate had all of its windows blown out, he said.
Christian Werner and his family had just come home from Freedom Springs Aquatic Park with his family when the storm hit. The park had shut down early due to the storm, and he and his family were keeping an eye on it as it approached, he said.
“There was no rain whatsoever, then all of a sudden, in the distance, we see gusts shooting up and we realized that it was a tornado,” Werner said. “When we realized that we started taking photos and then we realized it was coming right at us, and we ran to the basement”
Once inside their basement, they started to hear noises outside and their ears began to pop. When they exited, everything was ruined, Werner said.
“We probably had about two minutes to react, at most,” he said. “Our backyard was covered in insulation and wood. I went up to my room to find it had no ceiling. It was just scary.”
For now, his family is going to stay with his grandparents, and they plan to salvage what they can.
Former Camden Lane resident Jeanne Schwers was visiting the area when the twister came through. Schwers used to live at a home on the 2900 block of Camden Lane, which was severely damaged by the tornado.
All of the home’s glass was broken, the doors were blown in and there was damage to the roof. She was sitting on the porch with her dog when her daughter — who was watching the weather — screamed at her to come in.
“We couldn’t get downstairs,” Schwers said. “The French doors blew open and all the air was coming upstairs so we had to hide in the pantry and then it was gone just like that.”
Schwers, who was visiting from Florida, and her family had been at the home for over 50 years and never seen anything like the storm that came through, she said. They stayed with a friend Sunday night following the storm.
Deja vu
The storm is likely causing a bit of deja vu for many county residents, as not even three months have passed since Whiteland and Union Township were hit by tornados.
On March 31, two twisters touched down in the county as part of a wide-ranging outbreak that spawned 145 tornadoes across the midwestern, southern and eastern United States. In Indiana alone, severe storms caused a total of 23 tornadoes across the state from March 31 to April 1, damaging more than 1,000 structures, injuring 34 and killing five.
Locally, two tornadoes touched down on March 31: an EF-0 near Bargersville that downed power lines and damaged buildings and an EF-3 that caused significant damage in Whiteland, damaging 179 homes — including destroying 16.
— Daily Journal staff members Noah Crenshaw, Leeann Doerflein and Andy Bell-Baltaci contributed to this report.
