PORTLAND, Indiana – Emergency crews continued to survey the damage left by a tornado Sunday evening at Jay County Junior-Senior High School Monday afternoon.
Due to the resulting damage, schools in Jay County had to be closed on Monday.
Sunday’s storm also damaged homes within 42 miles (67 km) of the Indiana school, with one home losing a large portion of its roof.
No injuries were reported.
Dustin Norman, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s warning coordination team, inspected the middle and high school building Monday morning and said, “It’s pretty much a mess there.”
“Part of the roof was lifted off,” Norman said. “We have some air conditioning and ventilation units that were ripped off the roof. Some of the classrooms are open to the outside.”
The greatest damage is likely to be at the west end of the middle school building.
At least a large portion of a heating, ventilation and air conditioning unit that was torn from the school’s roof was found several feet east of the building on school property, not far from Indiana 67.
Most information about the storm and its aftermath – including the decision on whether Jay County schools will reopen on Tuesday – should be released later Monday.
Sunday’s storm did not trigger any National Weather Service tornado warnings or alerts.
“We were not in a particularly favorable environment for tornadoes,” Norman said, explaining that much of the rotation of Sunday’s tornado occurred closer to the ground than most storms for which such warnings are issued.
“This is one of the rare cases where people probably won’t get a warning from our office,” he said. “We just have to swallow our pride and hope everyone is safe.”
He also noted that Sunday’s storm was accompanied only by rain showers, but not by a thunderstorm.
Before the storm damage was reported in Jay County, emergency dispatchers in Delaware County received reports of storm damage in the area of Delaware County Road 600 West and Indiana 332 on Sunday evening.
A dispatcher reported that a report was received from rescue crews at 7:43 p.m. Sunday about a “possible landing or rotation” in the area, near the small town of Cammack.
No related injuries were reported.
Chief Deputy Jeff Stanley of the Delaware County Sheriff’s Department said around 8:30 p.m. that the only damage found in the area was to a TK Constructors building north of Jackson Street in Cammack.
Photos were posted online of a dark cloud with a narrow plume approaching the ground, supposedly in the same area. These photos sparked speculation that the cloud was a land plume, which some believed to be a low-intensity tornado.
NWS official Norman said the storm that hit Jay County Junior-Senior High School may have been a landspout, calling it a type of tornado with a “different mechanism” than other types of storms, which are typically more powerful.
Douglas Walker is a news reporter for The Star Press. Reach him at 765-213-5851 or [email protected].
