Lengthy tornado cleanup continues in Posey County

POSEY COUNTY, Ind. (WEHT) – Cleanup efforts continue in the Mount Vernon area following Tuesday afternoon’s strong tornado in portions of Union, Posey and Gibson counties.

“Honestly, I’m just amazed at how much devastation there was,” says Mount Vernon Mayor Steve Loehr. Like many other residents in the path of the storm, Loehr took shelter in his basement as the large, multi-vortex tornado crossed the Ohio River, ravaging the far east side of the city just a few hundred yards from a busy residential area.

“Obviously, being this close to the edge of town, a quarter of a mile to the west and we’d have a totally different conversation going on right now,” explains Loehr.

The tornado damaged the Kenco factory and toppled tree limbs and power lines along State Route 62. Further north, several train cars were toppled over. The tornado also tossed around trailers before heading further north into a mobile home park, causing significant damage. The American Red Cross says 26 individuals received at least minor damage, and 6 of those stayed overnight at a tornado refuge at Mount Vernon Junior High School.

“We’re anticipating that could be more as people are coming out and realizing what kind of damage they have, or maybe they don’t have family or friends to stay with,” says Beth Sweeney with the Red Cross. “We will have the shelter open as long as there is a need.”

Bo Harris with Mount Vernon schools says there was no hesitation in using the school as a shelter. “With students not being in session,” says Harris, “it made it real easy to be able to open up the gyms immediately and not have to worry about classes going on the next day.”

While the recovery process will be lengthy, Mayor Loehr and Sweeney are thankful the tornado didn’t prompt a much different response. “Going in and cleaning up and repairing is a lot different than going in, cleaning up and trying to recover people or help people,” says Loehr. “A lot of people are waking up and feeling really lucky, but there are a lot of people who are hurting and have lost everything this morning,” adds Sweeney.

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