National Weather Service confirms tornado touchdown in Lake Township

June 19--LAKE TWP. -- Mike and Chrissy Harrison looked out their sliding back door and saw angry, swirling black clouds approaching.

It was a massive tornado in mid-air approaching from the northwest, said Mike Harrison, 52, a contractor, who lives off Redwood Avenue NW in northern Stark County.

The twister struck about 7 p.m. Thursday as showers and thunderstorms rumbled through Northeast Ohio.

"What we were seeing was pretty unbelievable. The clouds were wide, not one of those skinny tornadoes you see on television. It was swirling and swirling. It was massive and wide...and fast moving," he said.

The U.S. Weather Service investigated on Friday and confirmed that a tornado did strike the Uniontown area.

It was rated an EF-1 tornado -- the lowest designation possible -- and skipped along the ground from 7:07 to 7:18 p.m.

The weather service says it had a top speed of 105 miles per hour and was the width of a football field.

It first touched down in Lake Township near the Uniontown Fire Department and ended in Marlboro Township about nine miles away. It moved east-southeast along an intermittent path.

A new dairy barn at state Route 44 and St. Peters Church Road NE in Marlboro Township suffered significant roof damage, the weather service said. It said trees were uprooted and there was minor damage to many houses. There were no reports of serious injuries.

The Harrisons watched the approaching winds twist a neighbor's maple tree until it snapped in half. Other trees were toppled and also snapped in half, opening a vista to the west of the onrushing clouds.

"It was maddening, totally maddening wind and rain," Harrison said of the giant swirl of black clouds.

Watching the approaching tornado was "totally mesmerizing," Harrison said. "It's like watching a train wreck. You just have to keep watching until you gotta go."

He and his wife and three dogs finally ducked into the basement.

The house shook a little and they huddled in the basement with flashlights.

After about 15 minutes, everything was calm.

The Harrisons then learned that their house was unscathed but the tops of four large white pines had broken off and had crushed their 1,200-square-foot pole barn.

The trees were about 100 feet high and six feet in circumference at chest height. Six are still standing.

The tin-roofed barn, built in 2006, will be demolished and rebuilt, Harrison said.

The building is covered by insurance.

Flattened in the barn was Harrison's 2012 Ford F150 FX4 truck that had gotten $300 in detailing last weekend.

His wife's new truck, with 45 miles on the speedometer, was at a Canton dealership because of a minor problem.

A tree company with two cranes was needed to remove the white pines from the crushed barn.

"It's a war zone," said Mike Parker, also of Lake Township. "The neighborhood just looks like a battlefield."

Parker and his wife, Kathy, were celebrating their anniversary at a movie theater when the storm hit. They got a call from their three children, ages 20, 17 and 16. They advised their children to go to the basement.

One dead sassafras tree was snapped off, and another sassafras was uprooted, said Parker, 50, a teacher and coach at nearby Lake High School.

The tops of trees throughout his neighborhood off Canyon St. NW were sheared off, and the area was pummeled by heavy rains and winds, he said.

Strangely, a six-sided, glass-topped patio table apparently flew through the air and around a dozen trees, before landing unbroken on a neighbor's pool deck at the bottom of a hill.

He said he was grateful that everyone was safe and the house was not damaged.

"Thank the Lord for that," he said.

It took Parker six hours to clean up his yard from the wind-blown debris.

One shaken and frightened neighbor tried to move his car as the storm hit. It was total blackness, severe rain and the car itself was shaking in the winds, Parker said.

Southern Summit, northern Stark and northern Wayne counties were the hardest hit areas with downed trees and utility poles, said U.S. Weather Service meteorologist Zach Sefcovic in Cleveland.

The Akron-Canton Airport got 1.45 inches of rain on Thursday and recorded winds of 36 miles per hour, although the winds may have been higher in the storm areas, he said.

The Akron Fulton Airport got 2.11 inches of rain in the 24 hours ending at 7 a.m. Friday.

The thunderstorms struck Marshallville and Rittman about 6:55 p.m., according to reports to the weather service.

They hit Green about 7 p.m. There were reports to the weather service of 90-foot-high trees in northwest Green being toppled and a report of 3 inches of rainfall there in 15 minutes.

The storms hit Hartville at 7:10 p.m. A section of state Route 619 near the Summit-Stark County line was temporarily closed due to downed trees.

A line of 10 power poles on 44th Street NW between Cleveland Avenue NW and Market Avenue North in Canton was downed about 7:15 p.m.

Low-lying areas of Akron's Central Interchange had 2 to 3 inches of water about 7:28 p.m.

One westbound lane on Interstate 76 at Clark Mill Road in Barberton was closed by high water for several hours late Thursday. The westbound interstate was temporarily closed at State Street by a downed tree.

Ohio Edison Co. reported that up to 14,000 houses and businesses were without electricity at the peak of the storm.

Of that number, about 9,000 were in Green, Uniontown, Hartville and Alliance, said spokesman Mark Durbin.

A small number of those customers may be in the dark into Saturday.

Additional Ohio Edison crews and contractors were brought in to assist, Durbin said.

More rain is predicted this weekend for Northeast Ohio as the remnants of tropical storm Bill that hit Texas earlier move into the Midwest. The slow-moving system has dropped 5 to 11 inches of rain on Oklahoma.

The chance of showers and thunderstorms is 50 percent on Saturday afternoon and 40 percent Saturday night, 70 percent on Sunday and 30 percent Sunday night. The rains may be heavy at times, especially in thunderstorms, the weather service warns.

The city of Akron has extended the hours of its 311 telephone Call Center because of the additional rain expected. Residents can call 311 from any landline or 330-375-2311 from any phone. The telephone lines will be manned from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday and 8 a.m. to noon Sunday.

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