As some of you may know, I am a Lake High School alum. The last couple of days have been absolutely unreal around here. I now live in Oregon, so I was out of harms way. But 2 of my best friends are now homeless and I have family members who have significant damage to their property. My parents live less than a mile from the tornado's path and thankfully they have no damage. Everyone in the community appreciates everyones thoughts and prayers and the support we have gotten from the other communities around here has been amazing. Today, the Northwood football team came out and cleared debris for a couple hours. Rivals on the field, but when people need help...it is amazing how much compassion there is out there and an incredible willingness to help. I have spent the last couple days down there helping my freinds and family literally pick up the pieces of their lives. They are the lucky ones, however. There are seven deaths at this point and there are still some in very critical condition so we arn't out of the woods yets.

Lake will hold their graduation ceremony tomorrow night at Owens Community College and I imagine it will be a very emotional night for all those in attendence and I'm sure the media (who has been a total pain in the ass. They have just been in the way. People are trying to work and get stuff done and have to work around media vans and reporters and cameras walking around.) will be in a frenzy. My sister is part of the Lake Class of 2010 and I think how they have handled this has been great. I haven't heard things like 'this ruined OUR graduation' and 'this sucks for us'. All I have heard that 'we will have our day. What about the kids who don't have a school to go to next year and the families who are homeless and the family's who have lost loved ones'. It has been a tradegy, but we will come out of this stronger and closer than ever.

Some pictures I have taken and thought that people would be interested in seeing.

Ground Zero. Main Street Millbury. What is left of one of my best friend's house.



Another houst in ruins



A matress in a tree. Thrown a minimun of 300 yards.

Car

I just posted this in another thread, but because of the pictures you are showing in Millbury, the rating was shifted up to an EF4.

Incredible damage to trees. Just peeling bark off and snapped trees in half. This was a thick forest of trees.

Cars were tossed about like toys.

holy shit, my thoughts to all those in lake township

Lake High School..which has been condemned. It will be wrecked and a new school will be built.

holy hell. Let's hope this community can get back to normal as quickly as possible and start anew

Overhead of Main Street in Millbury. The house with the pool at the top of the pic is our friends house from the first pic in the opening post.



The pool. We actually drained it this afternoon in hopes of finding some vaulables that have still not be found, including a wedding ring. All we found was one diamond earring.

Absolutely a nightmare... With all the damage, I am very surprised that a LOT more people didn't lose their lives. If there is one thing I know about Ohioans, the grief will be shared among the entire state, People will come together, and the town will rebuild. Thoughts and prayers from the Wintersville area...

Somehow the books remained on the shelves in the library.

My god. When I heard Lake High School had been hit, I figured a roof had been removed.

Those pictures are impacting to say the least, and a reminder of the powerful force that is Mother Nature. I can't imagine having to go through what some of your friends and community members are right now, TBone. I hope they find peace in this soon, despite the tragedy it certainly is.

From a fellow SLL member, I wish Lake the best as it starts a new chapter.

sonofsam;382581 wrote:Absolutely a nightmare... With all the damage, I am very surprised that a LOT more people didn't lose their lives. If there is one thing I know about Ohioans, the grief will be shared among the entire state, People will come together, and the town will rebuild. Thoughts and prayers from the Wintersville area...

The loss of seven lives in tradegic, but thanks to INCREDIBLE emergency response from Lake, Northwood, Rossford, Oregon, Elmore, Woodville, Genoa and several other communities working together they were able to save many, many lives.

reclegend22;382583 wrote:My god. When I heard Lake High School had been hit, I figured a roof had been removed.

Those pictures are impacting to say the least, and a reminder of the powerful force that is Mother Nature. I can't imagine having to go through what some of your friends and community members are right now, TBone. I hope they find peace in this soon, despite the tragedy it certainly is.

From a fellow SLL member, I wish Lake the best as it starts a new chapter.

It has been unreal, to say the least. The thing that has helped so many people cope is that there is so much to do and so many to help. This is the first time I have had time to really sit back and reflect as I have been helping the last 2 days, but I have tears in my eyes as I post these pictures. Sleep is hard to come by, you just can't get these images from your mind and get it to turn off. Sheer exhaustion is the only way sleep can come and in a while hopefully I can get some rest.

TBone14;382584 wrote:The loss of seven lives in tradegic, but thanks to INCREDIBLE emergency response from Lake, Northwood, Rossford, Oregon, Elmore, Woodville, Genoa and several other communities working together they were able to save many, many lives.

I work in EMS, Those Emergency personnel had their hands full no doubt. I will say this though, with all the mass casualty training, trauma triage, confined space rescue, and terrorism response training these days, I have no doubt that the emergency services including police, fire, and ems were on their game and did it right. I would like to give them a thank you for what they are doing. I know this is off topic and not the main issue, but they are probably on minimal rest and busting their asses to make sure people are safe... Just wanted to give a shout out to them for their work.

I should note, that all of the pictures of the destruction in Millbury were photos I have taken, except for the overheads, which were used with permission from the Rossford Fire Department. All of the pictures of the school are property of a amatuer freelance photographer, Nicholas Huenefeld.

sonofsam;382592 wrote:I work in EMS, Those Emergency personnel had their hands full no doubt. I will say this though, with all the mass casualty training, trauma triage, confined space rescue, and terrorism response training these days, I have no doubt that the emergency services including police, fire, and ems were on their game and did it right. I would like to give them a thank you for what they are doing. I know this is off topic and not the main issue, but they are probably on minimal rest and busting their asses to make sure people are safe... Just wanted to give a shout out to them for their work.

I could not agree more.

I have never respected a tornado watch or warning in my life...I'm one of the ones on the porch waiting for it, drinking a beer. But all the stories of how quick it came and how little time people had to react has changed my prospective. Another example of the incredible power.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words .... But these pictures are just unbelievable. I hope this community can recover just as fast as it took for it to be destroyed. Prayers to everyone that lost someone and all of their homes.

Posted this in the other thread as well, but figured it was worth posting here too.

Check out the surveillance video: Tornado in Action clip.

It's crazy when the Lightening strikes and you can see the Tornado. It also causes an explosion.

The video replays some of the clips in slow-mo so you can see it better.

http://www.fox8.com/news/wjw-three-killed-wood-county-tornado-txt,0,2101138.story

I'm like you, TBone.

I used to get excited for tornado warnings when I was younger, even cheer for their realization so I could see potentially see one from my lawn (as long as the cloud disappeared when it reached my house). When do REAL tornadoes actually happen in NW Ohio anyhow? My Dad actually took me driving after one with a video cam (I'm not sure if he thought he was Bill Paxton or what) when I was seven (the funnel cloud never materialized that day, however). I definitely didn't fear a warning for one.

They are certainly fascinating happenings, but I never again will be intrigued by the idea of seeing one. A thousand words aren't needed to describe these pictures. Only one is. Scary.

I am on the other side of the state, people here take things for granted... The myth around here is that the hills prevent tornadoes from forming or that if we do get one it will be extremely bad because it will be bouncing in the hills and valleys... We had 2 tornado warnings in 3 days time. Like I said on the other thread, I can only remember ONE tornado warning in my 30 years prior to these two. I find storms fascinating, but I am also very cautious. If there is a Tornado Warning issued, my eyes are glued to the sky. If things get to the point where I cannot see the weather, its time to get underground. People I know make fun of me for how serious I take a Tornado Warning, but I hope those people look at pictures like these and sober up a bit. Hopefully they realize that a tornado can happen almost anywhere. We actually had a tornado touch down in the county under the first warning that was about 25 miles from my house. Thats close enough for me to take it seriously.

Once a tornado hits, many people say they didn't have time to prepare... Most areas have a warning issued when a storm is discovered that has the potential to spawn a tornado... Let that be enough warning to take cover. Even if a tornado does not touch down, what exactly do you have to do that is so important that you shouldn't take cover immediately? The people that wait are often the people that won't be around to laugh at you the next time you take cover. Hopefully these images remind people that safety should be priority #1 and if anything, hopefully the next time a tornado warning goes off in Ohio, everyone takes it seriously. It just might save your ass.

I wonder where the Tornado shelter is located at in that school?

Tbone - i live in genoa and was pretty close to devestation too. I went last night after work ( and will today at noon) to a house on Billman Rd./Trowbridge to help with cutting wood and was absolutely speechless. Full grown trees broken in half like tooth pics, half a house missing, etc. What a lot of the news isn't showing is the devestation that the tornado caused on Reiman Rd ( just north of my house). There are houses missing, cars thrown about...the pictures do not do the damage justice...

hoops23;382687 wrote:I wonder where the Tornado shelter is located at in that school?

In the basement. The flipped over police SUV and the vehicle to the south of it are the vehicles of persons who actually took shelter in the basement of the high school.