“It was raining so hard, and the wind was whipping, you couldn’t see out the windows,” Falk said of her drive home.
One tree uprooted and fell on her trailer, while all of the awning planks flew from the back of her house into her front yard, she said. Police and first responders shut down several roads as crews worked to clear the area and attend to the wounded family, she said.
Motorists, including local photographer Brooke Brzoska of Warren, stopped their vehicles as the wind picked up and a massive cloud crossed I-94 east of Detroit Metro Airport around 3:45 p.m. Wednesday. The torrential rain was coming down sideways, Brzoska said.
"It felt like a spin cycle in the washing machine,” Brzoska said.
Julia Creech, a 25-year-old resident on Houghton, said she checked her outdoor cameras as soon as her neighbor alerted her about the storm. She and her partner, Jack Cavenaugh, 27, were at work when the storm first hit, concerned about their dog at home alone.
“From the time I checked the cameras to the 15 minutes when we got home, all hell broke loose,” Creech said. “It was like, ‘Our subdivision looks like a war zone. It’s bad, we need to come home now.‘“
Creech and Cavenaugh spent the night checking in on neighbors and assessing the damage on their street.
“A catastrophe’s a catastrophe,” Richard Rickets, a 65-year-old resident. said while sitting outside his home with no power Thursday afternoon. “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”
Elsewhere in Metro Detroit, the storm collapsed the canopy of a Farmington Hills Citgo gas station near 10 Mile and Middle Belt with vehicles beneath it. Officials said a portion of the covering and a gas pump burst into flames at about 3:45 p.m. Wednesday. One person had minor injuries.
"Gas station employees were quick to initiate the station’s emergency shut-off," officials said.
The severe weather also led to a falling tree striking a vehicle in Highland Township, injuring two people, the Oakland County Sheriff's Office said. The incident occurred around 3 p.m. on South Duck Lake Road, south of Livingston Road.
A 35-year-old Columbus, Ohio, man was driving a 2015 Hino box truck subcontracted to the U.S. Postal Service south on South Duck "when the storm caused a large tree on the west side of the road to break off and land on the cab of the vehicle," officials said. "The truck then ran off the west side of the road and into some trees."
After striking the Hino truck, the falling tree also hit the roof of a 2018 Ford F150 pickup truck driven by a 23-year-old Highland Township man, according to the sheriff's office. Both men were hospitalized in critical condition.
Wednesday's second tornado touched down at about 1:19 p.m. at the Forest Dunes Golf Club in Roscommon in southeast Crawford County.
National Weather Service officials classified the tornado as an EF0, meaning its winds were between 65 mph to 85 mph.
They said the twister was 90 yards wide, was on the ground for one minute and moved 0.3 of a mile. Officials also said the tornado uprooted a couple of dozen trees, including three that fell onto a home's roof.
Crews from Michigan's largest power companies are working to restore service following the storms and tornadoes Wednesday.
DTE Energy reported about 8,500 of its customers across Metro Detroit were without electricity power on Thursday afternoon.
"As of 4 p.m. today, 80% of customers who lost power due to the storms have had their service restored," DTE said on its website at 5 p.m. Thursday. "We are on target to restore 95% of customers by the end of the day today and to restore all storm-related customers by the end of the day tomorrow."
Meanwhile, Consumers Energy reported late Thursday afternoon that almost 6,300 customers were without power.
The weather's reach stretched as far as Port Huron in the Thumb region. City Manager James Freed said the storm affected areas in the southern portion of the city the most. Numerous roads are closed because of downed trees and powerlines there, he said. There are also significant fields of debris in the area, according to Freed.
"Our emergency crews continue to clear roadways and assist residents," Freed said in a statement Thursday. "We are working with the National Weather Services as they determine whether or not a tornado was what our community experienced last night. In the meantime, we are focused on recovery and are grateful that we suffered no loss of life in our community."
Freed said he urges residents to wait until areas where powerlines were downed Wednesday are safe to begin cleanup. "We want residents to take their time and be safe about this," he said.
In the meantime, he said the city is offering free brush pickup throughout the community and has partnered with DTE Energy to distribute free ice and water to those impacted by power outages.
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