LA PORTE COUNTY, Ind. -- ABC57 spoke to several people who suffered property damage near Wanatah, Indiana, who tell us that although it's unfortunate, they're thankful a storm of this magnitude didn't cause any injuries.
"It was nuts. I've never seen anything like this up close," said Sue Devereaux, a Wanatah resident. Thursday night was intense in parts of La Porte County, with strong winds, heavy rain, and at least one tornado.
Residents woke up to the aftermath, seeing the impact the storms left behind.
"As you can see, we live in a tunnel here, where if it's coming over 65, it runs right through here, and obviously my house is one of the houses that faces towards the west, so I get hit pretty hard, and last night, it was pretty treacherous," said Lenny Mendez, a Wanatah resident.
"I'm thinking I'm lucky that it didn't get closer to my house and the tree beyond my house," said Donald Crane, a Wanatah resident. Crane has been living in Wanatah for more than five decades and tells us that the sound of Thursday night's storms reminded him of intense winter winds that cause the windows to whistle. The storm also gave him flashbacks to the devastating Palm Sunday tornadoes of 61 years ago. "I would put it pretty close to back in '65, when the tornado took the Kucchewitz house away, it's probably pretty close to that," said Crane.
Just up the road from Donald, Sue Devereaux and her husband woke up this morning to find an uprooted tree on their roof. When asked where last night's storm ranked for her, in regard to intensity, she said "As high as you can go. It was scary, it was scary."
"Actually terrifying, I really thought okay, we're going to have a tornado, I'm going to watch for it," said Perry Carlton, Wanatah resident.