Dayton Daily News from Dayton, Ohio • 5

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2002 AFTER THE STORM DAYTON DAILY NEWS AS Family Residents recount tornado's Jury Storm Headlines From Wire Service Dispatches MAN GETS SHOTS OF A LIFETIME WEST MANSFIELD Before driving to work on Sunday, Jeff McCall grabbed his digital camera, hoping to get a couple good shots of lightning. "I said to my wife There might be some good lighting tonight, I'm going to take the camera with McCall said. He ended up with pictures of a tornado that touched down and struck a home near the road. McCall, who lives in this Logan County community, was headed south to work in Marys-ville on Sunday afternoon when his mother called on his cell phone and said a television station had reported a tornado was on the way. Worried about his wife Diana, and 16-year-old son, Timmy, McCall started the drive back home when the tornado caught his eye.

"The clouds were right above me and I could see the rotation," he said. "It looked like I could reach out and touch them, they were so close. It was really scary." McCall snapped pictures while driving 40-50 mph. JOBS IN JEOPARDY AFTER STORMS VAN WERT The jobs of about 300 people are in doubt after a tornado hit this northwest Ohio city. At least four of the eight factories in Vision Industrial Park were destroyed Sun CONTINUED FROM Al Tell-tale signs of such a powerful tornado were the cars and trucks picked up and tossed by the wind.

"We've got a semi trailer next door up on the roof of Cooper Farms," said Barry Thatcher, who rents semi trailers from his business on U.S. 127 north of Van Wert. But the tornado didn't touch many of his smaller utility trailers. Athen Burke of Van Wert was parking his semi at Dedicated Fleet Logistics beside his pickup after a trip to North Carolina when the tornado hit. "I felt things hitting the side of my semi," Burke said.

"I felt the windshield come in on me. All I did was grab ahold of the shoulder harness with my hands, crossed my arms, closed my eyes and could feel everything hitting the side of the truck." Burke said he felt the wind drag the semi backward, then briefly lift it into the air. He suffered only a few cuts on his head and hands. After the storm, he exited the semi tractor through the windshield and found his truck lying upside down on the trailer. Charles Murray, 39, and his family had been heading south on U.S.

127 Sunday when they saw a big, black wall coming down from the sky and popping electrical transformers. "It reminded me of mortar rounds going off," Murray said Monday morning after bringing coffee to displaced residents returning to survey their damaged homes. Murray said that on Sunday he helped free a woman and her two dogs from her bathroom. Teresa Parsons, 40, said she found glass scattered across her house and personal items missing. As she told her story and fought back tears, her 11-year-old daughter, Trista, clutched a stuffed cen JIM WITMERDAYTON DAILY NEWS FRIENDS of Charlie Lehmkuhle help salvage his property at his Van Wert home Monday.

Lehmkuhle was injured by Sunday's tornado. Storms are over, recovery has just begun Tornadoes and high winds cut through Ohio on Sunday, killing five and injuring at least 25. More than a dozen states were struck by the storms, killing at least 35 people, leaving more than 200 hurt and causing millions of dollars in damages. On Monday, residents in Van Wert, Sandusky, Summit and other counties tried to put their lives back together and clean up the rubble in theff towns. MM I TY GREENLEESDAYTON DAILY NEWS AN F4 TORNADO ripped through this Van Wert construction company's equipment on Sunday.

day. On Monday, it was difficult to tell where those buildings once stood. "Those factories represented close to 300 jobs," said Nancy Bowen, county economic development director. "But we're of course hoping to move them into some temporary facilities. We're hoping this is not going to be a cause for closure." The county had lost several jobs in recent years as a factory closed and other businesses downsized.

The industrial park, which opened in 1994, was helping with an economic recovery. Countywide unemployment was 4.5 percent in September. 1 FOUR RAIL CARS FLY OFF TRACKS FOSTORI A Laurie Kinn was waiting at a railroad crossing for a freight train to pass when a tornado lifted four rail cars off the track in front of her minivan and tossed them up the street. "I threw my kids down on the floor of the car, and the noise was so incredible. The van was shaking so hard, and things were hitting it and sparks were flying," said Kinn, a Findlay resident.

After a moment of calm, she raised her head from the floor. "On the left was a train car, lying sideways about eight feet away. On the right was a huge uprooted tree blocking one side. And out the front? Trains, roofs, just debris. And rain.

I'm amazed the van didn't take off or flip over," Kinn said. The cars were from a CSX train that derailed about 5 p.m. Sunday when one of its cars loaded with vehicles jumped the track, said Gary Sease, a spokesman for CSX. tipede against the cold winds. The toy animal had been recovered from their house, "Garage is gone," Teresa Parsons said.

"Husband's truck is totaled. But nobody was home at the time, so I can be thankful." "You see it on TV. You see it in the paper. But I guess when it comes to your own personal property, it hits home," Parsons said. When the tornado hit the Klingers' property, it hurled their refrigerator more than a mile, snapped telephone poles like toothpicks, twisted metal around trees as if they were aluminum foil, and stripped the trees of their bark.

Mark Klinger said his truck was in the garage when he scrambled into the house's crawl space and the tornado hit. When he surveyed the damage minutes later, his truck was sitting on the foundation where the main house had been. "My truck had to have gone right over top of us," he said. Cyndi Klinger said her daughter Mikenna didn't stop talking until 3 a.m. Monday.

Mikenna wished the family had also tied the rope around their dog, Sam, who died in the storm. Mikenna said that she could hear her parents screaming as they all lay in the crawl space with nothing to cling to but each other. That puzzled the 4-year-old. "She's supposed to be safe with Mommy and Dad," Cyndi Klinger explained. Staff photographer Bill Garlow contributed to this report.

IIP Mm II mil i ATHEN BURKE of Van Wert was in his truck when the tornado struck. 'All I did was grab ahold of the shoulder harness with my hands, crossed my arms, (and) closed my JIMWITMERDAYTON DAILY NEWS PHIL M0HR is in disbelief as he sees what's left of his daughter's Van Wert home on Monday. His daughter, along with her husband and their 4-year-old daughter, hid in the crawl space as the tornado ripped their house from its foundation on Sunday. The family survived the disaster. Tornado Storm cripples Van Wert, neighbors Four tornadoes in the southwest corner of Van Wert County converged into one twister that spread at least a half-mile wide.

heavy damage to Cooper Farms, a turkey processor. The area, about two hours north of Dayton and 10 miles east of the Ohio-Indiana state line, already was in economic distress before the tornado, said Amy McConn, executive director of the Van Wert Area Chamber of Commerce. "This is certainly going to compound that," McConn said. National Weather Service teams inspecting the area said the tornado was a category F4 storm, the second most severe on the scale for measuring damage from tornadoes, said John Taylor, a meteorologist in Syracuse, Ind. The last tornado that strong to hit northwest Ohio was Feb.

18, 1992, also in Van Wert County, he said. A tornado that struck Xenia on Sept. 20, 2000, also was a category F4. It left one dead, injured more than 100 and caused an estimated $40 million in damage. Van Wert EMA director Rick McCoy said four tornadoes in the southwest corner of Van Wert County converged into one twister that spread at least a half-mile wide.

The storm had winds of between 207 to 260 mph by the time it struck the Van Wert Cinemas on Lincoln Highway, killing Mollenkopf, a motorist, along the way. "It stayed here for maybe up to 30 seconds," McCoy said. "It seemed like an eternity," said theater manager Scott Shaffer, who led scores of movie-goers to the theater's rest rooms and brick hallway for shelter. For the most part, everybody was calm as the twister approached, Shaffer said. "Afterward, that's when the fear set in," he said.

Shaffer, whom O'Connor credited with saving numerous lives, said he got a lot of help from customers and co-workers. "If it weren't for them I don't know what would have happened," said Shaffer, who suffered a gash on his left arm that required 10 stitches. No one inside the theater was seriously hurt. The tornado ripped away part of the roof and walls of the steel-framed cinema and dumped three cars, two in the front row, into one of the cinema's theaters, where an estimated 50 to 60 people had gathered for Santa Clause 2. they were just screaming and yelling and crying." In the aftermath, dust and debris covered Paul Roddy's back and shoulders and filled his sweatshirt pockets, too, he said, but the twister left him largely unscathed.

Asked if he thought we was going to die, Roddy responded: "The thought had crossed my mind. I was almost certain we probably were going to die. But I wasn't scared. I figured if it was our time it was our time and at least we were going together, that was the most important thing." The tornado totaled the Roddy's 1993 Pontiac Grand Am and put a damper on Tracy's 26th birthday, which was Monday. "She ended her first quarter century with a boom," said her mother, Judith Adams.

Still, the couple was counting its blessings just the same. "I've learned to appreciate my family more," Tracy Roddy said. "It could have been a way different outcome." Contact Anthony Gottschllch at (513) 932-6728 or anthonygottschllchcoxohlo.co-m. Staff Writer Ben Sutherly and The Associated Press contributed. CONTINUED FROM Al The tornado, packing winds of more than 200 mph, was one of dozens spawned by a ferocious storm that flattened factories and farm houses across a 100-mile path through northwest Ohio on Sunday.

Five people were killed. At least 25 were injured. More than a dozen states were hit by the storms that left at least 35 dead and more than 200 injured. The tornado hit Van Wert at 3:28 p.m., killing two and injuring 19, three of them critically. In separate areas, Van Wert County residents Nicholas Mollenkopf, 18, and Alfred Germann, 75, also were killed.

At least 120 homes in Van Wert were destroyed, the American Red Cross reported. The storm also caused untold damage to the local economy before advancing northeast and over Lake Erie. The twister damaged more than 50 homes and about 15 businesses, costing tens of millions of dollars in damages, said Hugh Saunier, public information officer for the Van Wert County Emergency Management Agency. "There are approximately 300,000 square feet of industrial-manufacturing property that's been damaged or destroyed, leaving an estimated 300 to 500 people jobless," Saunier said. The twister flattened at least three factories in Vision Industrial Park including handbag maker KAM Manufacturing, National Door Triffl and the trucking company Dedicated Fleet Logistics, all adjacent to each other along Bonnewitz Avenue.

The tornado also destroyed nearby Team Wholesale, the county engineer's complex and caused Paul and Tracy Roddy of nearby Paulding City were leaving the theater after viewing the Eminem movie, 8 Mile, when the tornado sirens sounded. "I saw it forming and I could see the clouds just getting sucked in the middle, and inside the funnel I could see flashes of white, where it was probably breaking the power lines and stuff," said Paul Roddy, who rushed with his wife back inside, crouched with the others and blanketed Tracy with his body. As the tornado hit, "People were just screaming, because there were a lot of kids where we were," Paul Roddy, 27, said. "Out of the 30, 40 people there I'd say over half of them were kids and.