Celina, Ohio...Tornado or Wind Sheer?

After a miserable day of rain...and watching another Reds lost(to fall to 9-8 on the young season), I headed off to bed about 11:30 last night.  I took the digital camera, knowing with the approaching storms, I might get a chance to get a rare night lightning shot.  Never happened....I fell to sleep and was only awakened by the call of nature.  Not Mother Nature mind you, but nature when it comes to a 62 year old man, who had a couple Guinness Extra Stouts before bed time.

When I did get up at 12:45am, I noticed the wind was blowing pretty hard, the rain was coming down likewise...and the lights were out.  The humidifier was off, the digital clock was black...after doing what I went to the bathroom to do, I immediately walked nose first into the 88 year old hard wood bathroom door...now that pissed me off, to say the least.  I thought for a second that I had broken my damn nose...so I punched the door, not once, but twice...this waking up Patricia, who sez: "Don't break the door"...I didn't, but did knock the equally old lock piece out of it's slot....being the "handyman" in the house, Patricia fixed it.  By that time I was back to bed...the storm's thunder and lightning had increased, but I didn't care...I was sound asleep, until I heard the sounds of the ceiling fan and humidifier come back on around 2:30.

Patricia got up at her usual 5:45...and woke me up at about 7 to tell me a possible tornado had struck Celina's east side overnight.  Amazingly it was around the time I went to bed that the major damage occurred.   I didn't have a clue.  No warning sirens, no pounding on our windows...nothing but lightning, rain, and wind.  Meanwhile a mile east on my same street, trees were being ripped out and snapped into splinters.  Another half mile away at the Wal Mart/Menards Complex...roofs were being ripped off, signs destroyed, and the Aldi Food outlet received heavy damage.  Cars destroyed, windows blown out of homes and businesses...but on my west side and downtown, you couldn't tell a major storm had hit.  Just a lot of standing water.  Mother Nature is a fickle gal.

After showering I headed out with camera to see if I could take some shots of the aftermath...but driving around, I noticed way too many "Rubber Neckers" clogging the streets and by-ways...so I opted to head home and wait.  The damage I noticed was pretty impressive, but with no injuries reported, things could have been much worse.  The photos you see here, of the Aldi damage, were sent to me by my niece, Megan Van Gundy, so I give her credit for those...she was on her way to work...just across the highway from the Wal Mart area when she took them.  Her place of employment appeared to have no damage...the storm carnage was contained to the north side of Highway 29 as it moved towards St. Marys and Auglaize County.  A bar on the north side of Grand Lake was reported destroyed....but not sure which watering hole it was...or even if the reports are true.

More on the damage later....I might get back out for another photo shoot, we will see...

No game tonight, fields would be too wet anyway...needless to say last night's WBL game at St. Marys was canceled as well.  Tomorrow appears to be the one "dry" day for the next two weeks, if you believe the forecast(and I'm starting to believe)...and maybe we can play at Columbus Grove, as they take on Ada in a NWC game.

back later>>>>>>

Photos-by Megan Van Gundy from her car as she passed the damaged Aldi Store across from the Wal Mart/ Menards Complex on Celina's east side at Haveman Road...April 20, 2011

UPDATED PHOTOS~Back from a look around the damage area here are some updated photos...and details:

The Aldi store is destroyed...Celina Baseball Main Diamond has heavy damage, and the woods at Eastview Park and on East Livingston Street are severely damaged.....several other houses and business areas received major damage: