Tornados in our area tonight. Take cover. They happened west and south of us and the Kalamazoo area got hammered. My agency sent a couple crews to Portage on a building collapse

We are good. I’m actually at the Homeland Security Conference in GR. Wife is home at the farm

Hope all of you are good

We had a warning but not much else.

Nothing but heavy rains and here and there lightning strikes in Livingston County.

That is my home town, served on the FD in Portage. It was hard hit. Many buildings collapsed. Tornado went from Colony Woods neighborhood across Schuring & S. Westnedge, through Romence Rd & Lovers Lane (it's real, don't laugh), leveled the FedEx building off Portage & Styker then continued out to Pavilion Estates trailer park and did a lot of damage there.

Two things happened I never heard before.
- First they struck a county wide General Alarm for all departments in Kalamazoo County. This called all available firefighters and apparatus to Portage.
- Second an hour or so into the incident officers reported a second tornado from another storm, on the ground following the same track as the first.

I have family in the area, and due to the warning they went down into their basement. A tornado touchdown occurred about 1100 yards from their house and took out the nearest liquor store, touched down on the street behind their house (about 110 yards feet from my relative's house), and touched down again about 2.5 miles from their house before leaving city limits. They're OK and so is their home.

EDIT: I misunderstood their original explanation. The tree that hit the neighbor behind them was in the backyard not frontyard which means the tornado was 110 feet from my relative's house not 110 yards.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: tatortodd,

A few drops of rain, and then it cleared up within a few minutes.

We were under a watch in Kent county that cancelled most school events. A few peels of thunder, but most of the heavy weather was east of us.

We got some rain but all the nasty stuff missed us. Rightwire, two tornadoes on the same track an hour apart is definitely a weird one!

We’re in North Carolina, but neighbors (Battle Creek area) said that heavy rain is all we got. For nine years I worked two miles from the strip mall in Portage that was severely damaged, used to eat lunch there occasionally.

quote:

Originally posted by Rightwire:
Tornado went from Colony Woods neighborhood across Schuring & S. Westnedge, through Romence Rd & Lovers Lane (it's real, don't laugh), leveled the FedEx building off Portage & Styker then continued out to Pavilion Estates trailer park and did a lot of damage there.

I actually live on Lovers Lane and My mom lives within sight of Lovers on Centre street. Thankfully I live just far enough north that I was not directly impacted , but just down the road looks like a demilitarized zone. My mom lost power and I went and picked her up after the tornadoes went through. I couldn't believe the amount of damage near the Lovers and Romence intersection. It is going to take a while for Portage to dig out of this, but thankfully nobody was killed. the only injuries I have heard of so far are some broken bones of some folks in the Pavilion Estates trailer park.
My son lives on Schuring and his place lost power (and somebody's shed was laying in the parking lot of his apartment complex) but he wasn't home when it went through.

About an hour and a half of rain and thunder then light rain in Walled Lake (SE Michigan) area.
Rod

I was across the street from FedEx in Portage yesterday at a customer. My strange relationship with tornados continue. I have a history of tornados hitting the building next to me or the one I just left.

One went over us on the east side. Waiting for the official survey report but the Twp said it was believed to be a f0 and not straight line winds.

Trees down in our neighborhood in all different directions but no damage to our house.

According to our Governor, this is an effect of Climate Change



Initial formation out in farm country SW of the city


As it goes through the city