LEIPSIC, OH (WLIO) - New details emerged Tuesday night from Putnam County as the National Weather Service confirms one landspout tornado touched down.
On Tuesday afternoon, a Your Hometown Stations crew traveled to Putnam County and found one residential house damaged on Road H-5 about 3 miles south of Leipsic. On scene, our crew discovered large sections of the roof torn off with damage to the siding as well. The tornado also destroyed an attached garage and lifted a recreational vehicle off the ground. Large chunks of the roof were curled up and thrown into a nearby field with smaller pieces of insulation and debris continuing for at least a quarter-mile. Officially, the National Weather Service did not issue a tornado warning, and we spoke with Putnam County EMA Director, Brian Hilvers, about how Tuesday's event unfolded.
"At around 2:42 this [Tuesday] afternoon, our sheriff's department and 911 received a call of a tornado that touched down just outside of Leipsic on H-5, and the house was hit. So therefore, our first responders responded to that call then. A lot of our people just, when they heard about it, they just sort of sheltered in place. We had a lot of people come out to the scene of the couple that had their house hit and help start the cleanup process. A lot of our schools did a shelter-in-place when they were notified of the tornado in the Leipsic area, and some of the schools already had busses that were leaving, and they called them back for the kids' safety of this tornado coming," shared Brian Hilvers, EMA Director, Putnam County Office of Public Safety.
Hilvers also said the home located on Road H-5 is currently the only known area of damage they have discovered from Tuesday's tornado. He also shared that 8 tornado sirens were activated in Leipsic, Gilboa, and Ottawa.
For a link of the official storm survey released by the National Weather Service in Northern Indiana: https://www.weather.gov/iwx/03052024_tornado
