HANCOCK COUNTY — Emergency sirens alerted people that a serious storm was approaching around 1:30 p.m. Monday. The sirens’ loud blast indicated that the approaching weather was no joke and people should seek shelter right away. Thanks to warm air and moist conditions, Central Indiana was under a tornado watch starting around 11 a.m. Monday.
“Then it switched to a tornado warning really quickly around 1:33 p.m.,” said Misty Moore, director of emergency management for the county. “We’re thinking we did have a tornado … We’ve been out doing damage assessments and, from the reports we saw, some people saw a funnel cloud. With the damage they had, we do think we had a tornado.”
While officials from the Indiana National Weather Service had not yet determined at press time whether a tornado hit the county, Moore says INWS will be in the area as soon as Tuesday morning to do an assessment.
Just southeast of McCordsville, there is plenty of damage to indicate the winds, rain and hail were incredibly strong as the fast-moving storm blew through the county within minutes.
“Some power lines and trees are down and there are a few older barns that have roof damages and some houses with siding blown off,” Capt. Robert Harris of the Hancock County Sheriff’s Department said. “Typical severe storm stuff.”
Harris noted that officials with the county’s dispatch center had a couple of calls with people saying they thought they saw a tornado, but officers were not able to confirm anything.
Fortville Chief of Police Patrick Bratton said there was a good chance a small tornado did hit outside of McCordsville, passing east, going though County Roads North 500W and 400W near the Littleton/Kingen Round Barn, 4682 W 600 N, McCordsville, along County Road West 600N.
“There’s a huge big red barn right there in that area that is probably about 120 years old, and parts of it have flown a mile and a half away into another field,” Bratton said. “It’s an old, historical barn and it’s leaning pretty good right now.”
Officials at the farm where the barn is located told Bratton everyone was in the shop working and heard the storm approaching.
“They had some windows blown out of trucks, but they were all OK,” Bratton said.
Bratton noted nothing in the Town of Fortville seemed to get hit too badly by the quick-moving storm and they did not see any hail fall like some areas in the southern part of the county have reported. However, Vernon Point, by the Fortville Pike and Ind. 234 area had a box truck flip over at the corner due to the strong winds coming through.
“Then on the north side of a subdivision there was a camper flipped over in someone’s driveway,” Bratton said. “That indicates some pretty strong winds.”
The storm hit quickly around 1:30 p.m. and was in and out of the county by around 2 p.m. Monday.
“It started blowing and raining, and our emergency sirens and lights came on and, within a half hour, it was gone,” Bratton said. “Typical Indiana spring storm.”
Major Jim Bell of the McCordsville Police Department said they had reports of some wind damage to a warehouse off of Mt. Comfort Road, but other than that, it was just a bad severe storm.
Officials with the local school systems noted they had the students shelter and go into tornado safety protocol as soon as the sirens went off.
“We did shelter in place for about 25 minutes,” Eastern Hancock Principal Adam Barton said of all three schools located on the EH campus.
Communications Director for the Southern Hancock School District Wes Anderson noted that they were not inside the box indicating severe weather was going to hit the area, but as soon as the sirens went off, they too implemented tornado safety training protocol for students.
“I don’t even think we had any rain over here by New Palestine High School,” Anderson said. “But, with Indiana weather, it’s better to be safe than sorry.”
