A line of storms moved through Central Indiana on Monday evening, producing at least one tornado and damaging homes and businesses in Boone and Hamilton counties.
Monday night, it was too early to tell how many tornadoes the storm produced, said Tara Dudzik, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
“It was mainly one long track, one that was kind of surviving through several counties that was touching down and going back up,” Dudzik said. “It’ll probably be one tornado that touched down several times.”
The National Weather Service confirmed a tornado was seen at 5:52 p.m. in Danville, about 17 miles west of Indianapolis. A touchdown was confirmed shortly after, just east of Pittsboro. The weather service also confirmed a tornado on the ground in Brownsburg just after 6:30 p.m.
Most of the damage in Brownsburg appeared to be in the northwest corner of the town. In one subdivision near Witham Road, several residents left their homes Monday evening to pick up scattered branches and tree limbs.
Joe Gleissner, 54, said his home sustained minimal damage. Half of the tree in his front yard was downed, and two sections of his fence were destroyed.
Gleissner was driving home from Crawfordsville when he first caught wind of the storm and made it inside his house just before things took a turn for the worse.
“I was home five minutes, and I could tell something was brewing, and the swirling was evident, and the noise was just tremendous,” Gleissner said. “They say it sounds like a train. I think it was worse.”
Others seemed to sustain more damage east of Gleissner’s subdivision.
Mike Good, Brownsburg’s water superintendent, was out Monday night with a small crew surveying damage to a water plant on County Road 700 North. Pieces of the roof had blown off and landed on the ground several feet from the building.
Good, 59, said he was at home when the storm hit but drove out to the plant when an employee told him it had lost power.
“I was out in the front yard with my wife, and all of a sudden here comes these leaves out of the sky,” Good said. “I was like, what’s going on?”
Good said the plant avoided any serious, permanent damage.
“It’s just cosmetic,” he said. “We’ll be all right.'”
The storm moved north into Boone County, where emergency service workers were still surveying damage late Monday. Mike Martin, director of Boone County’s emergency management, said crews saw multiple downed trees and power lines.
The worst damage he saw, Martin said, was a pole barn near Whitestown that was destroyed. The damage was estimated at $250,000.
Brownsburg Fire Department tweeted Monday night that no one was injured in the storm, despite damaged homes and downed trees and power lines. Capt. Amanda Goings with the Hendricks County Sheriff’s Department said the department had not received any injury reports by 9:30 p.m. Monday.
Indianapolis has received nearly 3 inches of rain in the past three days, and more is on the way. A flash flood watch will remain in effect for Marion County until 8 p.m. Tuesday, and the weather service forecast calls for chances of rain every day this week, with temperatures climbing into the mid-80s by Friday.
By Jill Disis and Holly V Hays, IndyStar 6:06 a.m. EDT August 16, 2016
Photo by Doug McSchooler/For IndyStar “Several trees in a neighborhood near County Road 550 East and Hammon Drive, near Brownsburg, sustained significant damage Monday, Aug. 15, 2016. The National Weather Service confirmed that at least one tornado touched down in Hendricks County.”
