Crescent-News.com - Tornado hits Putnam County

By LISA NICELY
nicely@crescent-news.com
A tornado touched down in Putnam County early Saturday morning, destroying or damaging at least eight homes and one business, according to Putnam County officials.
There were no reports of any deaths or injuries due to the storm which hit shortly after midnight.
A portion of southeastern Paulding County also sustained damage from strong, straight winds, but there was no tornado touch-down, reports Randy Shaffer, county Emergency Management Agency director.
Charlie and Rose Schroeder's home on Putnam County Road I was destroyed. The roof blew off the home and the garage collapsed on their cars, but luckily everyone survived.
"Our daughter woke us up," said Rose Schroeder as she and other family members were salvaging items from their home on Saturday. "She said, "Mom, we have to get to the basement now.' We got down there, and I asked her where her father and brother were. They were still upstairs. Then I heard a boom. I started yelling for them. They didn't answer, but then we heard their footsteps coming down."
Charlie and their son were making their way into the basement when winds blew the roof off the home.
"I heard a big crack and I was covered in insulation," he said.
After the winds calmed down, their daughter went back upstairs to inspect the damage.
"She just screamed," Charlie Schroeder said as he surveyed the damage.
Right down the road, his mother, Alice, slept through the tornado.
"I didn't know it was that this bad," she said.
It caused some damage to her home, which has been in the family since 1860. Bricks were blown off, windows were broken and more. It also knocked down several trees that trapped her in the house.
Her daughter, Lois Lammers, said emergency personnel had to help get her mother out of the house.
"You couldn't get out here because of the trees," she said.
Also cleaning up trees in wake of the tornado on Saturday was Dan Schroeder, who also lives on Road I.
He and his wife went to the crawl space under his garage stairs when the tornado hit.
"My wife went to the crawl space," Dan Schroeder said. "I went to the patio real quick. It was just raining. Then it got real loud and fierce. I ran for the crawl space. Then the lights went out and it was here."
Dan Schroeder, who has been through a tornado before, said he went out afterwards with a flashlight to survey the damage.
"I looked over at the neighbor's and couldn't see the barn," he said. "I had the flashlight, but the power lines were down so I couldn't venture too far. My wife called 911 for help."
His neighbor, who asked not to be named, had gone to her basement during the storms. She didn't come up until the firefighters entered the house to see if someone was home. Her home was destroyed " the garage collapsed and the roof was torn off " and her barns were blown down.
"It did not last long, but it was bad," neighbor Sue Schroeder said of the tornado.
Her family had also sought shelter in the basement.
"We heard a clunk," she said. "The chimney came down in the living room. We came out of the basement and there was outside. There was no garage anymore."
Several family members and friends were over at her home Saturday morning helping to clean up, remove trees and take inventory of what was left. Her van was found in the field next to the home. Other everyday things were being salvaged from the home, too.
"We have lots of help today cleaning up," she said. "I'm so grateful for that."
There was damage elsewhere in the county as well.
Dolores Schroeder's home on County Road 13-I didn't sustain much damage. The antenna was bent in half, and a tree was uprooted. The major damage was done to her barn, which will have to be razed.
"It was so loud," she said of the tornado. "It was just pouring. I'm lucky it was just my barn. I've never seen a tornado before."
On Ohio 15, Deb Leopold and her husband were in the basement waiting out the storm. They heard a tree come down and one of their outbuildings collapsed.
"We were up all night," she said. "We have hogs. The barn collapsed, so we had to go out and make sure the generators were working for the hogs."
No hogs were injured, but there was some debris in one of the pens.
There was a some debris and a lot of trees down on Road 11.
"We were lucky, very lucky," said Mary Ellen Klear, of Road 11. She and her husband, Dan, had just returned home and heard the sirens go off in Ottawa. "We went down to the basement turned on the TV and opened the basement window to hear outside. We were down there 10-15 minutes, then we heard a roar and the TV went out. We heard a couple of bangs. We weren't sure what we'd find when we came up."
The house was missing a few shingles and several trees were uprooted or broken off. About 30 trees were down at neighbor Robert Lee's home.
"We were in bed when it first hit," he said. "The loud noise woke us up. It sounded like a train."
Straight line winds from the storms also caused damage in Paulding County, near Melrose. Two house trailers were destroyed and the roof blew off of Uncle Fudd's restaurant.
Shaffer said that there were five or six people in one of the house trailers when the storm hit.
"They were very lucky to get out alive," he said, adding there were no injuries.
In addition, there were several trees uprooted in the county.