KENTON, OH (WLIO) - Clean-up is ongoing after a tornado hit the south end of Kenton just before 1 o’clock Saturday afternoon. The National Weather Service says the tornado was an EF-1. Luckily no one was injured, but the tornado did do some damage to a stretch of property. Power crews were working around the city trying to restore electricity. Hunter Roberts and his family went straight to the bathroom in their home when their phones alerted them of the tornado. The storm severely damaged their garage and some vehicles behind their home, but everyone was safe.
“It was like a whistle when you’re in a car next to a window and it’s rolled down a little bit. But it was 10 times deeper than I have ever heard before. It just, I don’t know, resembled like a monster, kind of," says Hunter Roberts. “I normally thought that it was just going to be a little flyover thing until we were in the bathroom, and we heard a loud bang. I thought it was maybe a tree or something then I came out to see that we were missing the top story to our garage.”
And across the street, when Chris Jones heard the alert, he and his wife went straight to the basement, while the storm flew over ahead and did damage to their backyard.
“You know people say that it sounds like a freight train coming through and we didn’t hear none of that it just got windy, and we didn’t hear all the destruction, maybe because we were in the basement,” says Chris Jones. “I came outside and looked out and I thought holy mackerel. But the first time I have ever been in one of these. I hope it’s the last. But I am pretty lucky, I still have a roof, and everybody is fine.”
The last tornado to hit Hardin County was an EF-1 that touched down south of Ada in December of 2021.
