LAKEVIEW, OH (WLIO) - Recovery efforts are in full force after a deadly EF-3 tornado devastated the Indian Lake community.
Lakeview, Russells Point, and Orchard Island residents continue to clean up the damage, with many regional communities pouring in support. Following the storm as well as search and rescue operations, Logan County officials have begun their initial assessments of how widespread the damage footprint is. On Friday afternoon, Your Hometown Stations traveled to Lakeview Hardware, where the Logan County EMA held a press conference on their initial findings in their damage assessment.
"Our teams went out; Butler County Incident Management Team came up to support Logan County, and they were paired with Logan County CERT team volunteers. They conducted damage assessments over about a day and a-half. They assessed over 900 structures. We recorded 133 destroyed, 164 major, 421 minor, and 178 affected properties, and that number doesn't total up—there's other things that have come in and gone out since then, but those are the main categories for us," says Helen Norris, EMA Director, Logan County Emergency Management Agency.
Due to the severity of the damage and after coordination with the Small Business Administration, the Ohio EMA, and Governor Mike DeWine, and FEMA will travel to Logan County on Tuesday, March 26th, to conduct a joint public damage assessment with the Logan County EMA. Through this assessment, FEMA will decide if a federal disaster declaration will be given to Logan County, and this will determine if federal assistance will open up to Indian Lake residents. Norris also says the process will take some time as FEMA will travel to seven other Ohio counties severely affected by the tornado outbreak.
