and everything is gone tornadoes ripped
through mid-michigan and for some the
destruction is just too much to handle
this is new viewer video of one of those
tornadoes touching down last night taken
along i-69 between Flint and Lansing the
National Weather Service confirms there
were two tornadoes last night damaging
more than 70 homes and businesses and
now they're his preliminary word one of
them was indeed an ef-2 tornado which
means that the winds reach speeds of 125
miles an hour Ben has been poring over
this brand-new data we'll get to him in
a moment let's start things off though
here at 5:00 with Jason Cole Tharp live
in Shiawassee County just southwest of
flint and that's one of the hardest hit
areas Jason they have an effect I might
be in front of the hardest hit home at
least certainly the one that suffered
the most damage that we've seen today
you can see it's tough to tell but
underneath that tarp is a number of
walls that are caved in severely damaged
a tree down and that's what it's been
for a lot of people around here today
just a few miles from here and Duran
where an EF 0 / EF one tornado hit we
talked to a homeowner who didn't want to
appear on camera but I want you to
listen to his words as he tells his
incredible story of trying to get his
disabled wife out of the shower dressed
downstairs to safety all while hearing
the tornado bearing down on him
the tornado hit around 7:00 last night
and the homeowner here tells me he had
about five minutes warning to get his
wife to safety she didn't want to get on
the basement I think she called me a
hypochondriac after something
his wife is disabled and quickly
realized her husband was serious and I
said no we got to go I look back at the
TV and seen it was getting even closer
headed right towards us and carried it
down to the basement and then I could
tell it was hitting the house and I
carried underneath the stairwell and
then it passed real quick then he went
outside and saw the damage the air
pressure blew the house the garage back
wall off the foundation and in the side
wall I don't know where it went as you
listen to this homeowner talk about the
destruction to his home just let me give
you a little perspective as to the power
of this storm things from the house
tossed all over the place but look at
some of these things this was thrown
from out of that garage and as you look
around the yard cinder blocks dozens of
them tossed like Matchbox cars well the
second tornado was four miles north of
here meteorologists from the National
Weather Service were surveying the
damage here to learn just how powerful
this tornado was it takes a lot of wind
to knock in the garage door and knock
down the wall and and and have cinder
blocks be thrown by the force of the
wall coming down we built this house in
99 and it was done with Union carpenters
we build it grow strong and I'm glad it
was dead what it was
this area heavily hit by down powerlines
still a lot of people without power here
you haven't heard anything but chainsaws
running in this area and can't tell you
how many times we've seen a tree like
this split in half now coming up at 6:00
someone else on this block down about
four four buildings was in there when
this thing hit and he raced down stairs
with a friend actually didn't make it in
time you're gonna hear where he hit and
how this whole thing raced through it
I'll say event last night I heard you
talking about how fast this storm was
moving talking to people out here today
several said it was here and it was gone
in five seconds yeah and when we talk
about tornado warnings so many of the
people you spoke to say they heard one
source first they asked or tried to
confirm it with a second source there's
just not time to do that when you're
talking about storms that are moving
this quickly the first of those
tornadoes north of 69 this was the
weaker of the two the EF 0 with the
estimated winds of about 80 miles per
hour
they are still looking at that second
storm this is that Vernon Township to
the durán tornado that's the EF 2 that's
the damage that they've seen so far but
that obviously could be upgraded as they
continue to look at that data and that
is right in the middle of that EF 2
scale on the Enhanced Fujita scale so
we'll be getting updates from the
National Weather Service here through
the evening we've got rained on top of
us right now it's getting really light
but it is still rain starting to
transition to snow in parts of our West
zone temperatures down below freezing
tonight way do you see the wind chills
for tomorrow morning
that's your 4 zone forecast in just a
few minutes