CALHOUN COUNTY (AP) — Three people have been killed in an apparent tornado in southern Michigan on Friday, authorities said, as powerful storms ripped across the state, tearing the roof off a home improvement store and knocking down trees.
The Branch County Sheriff’s Office said three people were also taken to the hospital after the apparent tornado hit the Union Lake area, which is about 125 miles (200 km) west of Detroit.
At least one tornado was confirmed in southern Michigan, near Union City, on Friday, according to the National Weather Service, and there may have been others.
At Lisa Piper’s home near Union City, she can be heard repeatedly yelling out, “Oh my God,” as she films from her back deck a ferocious rotating column of air that appears to be a tornado tear through an section of buildings across the lake from her. As its size grows, pulling large pieces of debris into the air, she says, “It’s lifting houses.”
“Oh my heart is pounding,” she says in the video. “Oh, I hope they’re OK.”
The state had the right conditions for a tornado because of a weather system that pulled moisture out of the Gulf of Mexico and a warm front that moved north, said David Roth, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland. The system encountered much cooler air in the Great Lakes area.