A tornado tore through a small northern Michigan community on Friday, killing at least one person and injuring at least 23 others as it flipped vehicles, tore the roofs off of buildings, and downed trees and power lines.
The twister hit Gaylord, a city of about 4,200 people roughly 230 miles (370 kilometers) northwest of Detroit, at around 3:45 p.m.
Mike Klepadlo, owner of Alter-Start North, a car repair shop, said he and his workers took cover in a bathroom.
“I’m lucky I’m alive. It blew the back off the building,” he said. “Twenty feet (6 meters) of the back wall is gone. The whole roof is missing. At least half the building is still here. It’s bad.”
Emma Goddard, 15, said she was at work making a smoothie for a customer when she got a phone alert about the tornado. Thinking the weather outside looked “stormy, but not scary,” she dismissed it and returned to what she was doing. Her mother then called and she assured her mom she was ok. “Not even two minutes later I was pouring the smoothie when all of a sudden my co-worker’s mom rushed through the front door of Tropical Smoothie and yelled for us to run to the back of the building because there was a funnel cloud coming our way,” Goddard told The Associated Press by text message. They took shelter in the walk-in cooler, where they could hear windows shattering.
“I was crammed shoulder-to-shoulder with my seven co-workers, two of my co-workers’ parents and a lady from Door Dash coming to pick up her smoothies.”
After about 15 minutes, they left the cooler and could smell natural gas, she said.
“As soon as we stepped outside we were shocked to find some of our cars in pieces and insulation all over the ground,” Goddard wrote, noting that three neighboring businesses were destroyed.
Brian Lawson, a spokesman for Munson Healthcare, said Gaylord-Otsego Memorial Hospital was treating 23 people who were injured by the tornado and that one person was killed. He didn’t know the conditions of the injured or the name of the person who died.
Lawson said the pace of people being brought to the hospital had slowed by Friday evening. “From what I’m gathering, things have stabilized a bit,” he said.
Video posted online showed a dark funnel cloud materialize out of a cloud as nervous drivers looked on or slowly drove away, uncertain of its path.
Other video showed extensive damage along the city’s Main Street. One building appeared to be largely collapsed and a Goodwill store was badly damaged. A collapsed utility pole lay on the side of the road, and debris, including what appeared to be electrical wires and parts of a Marathon gas station, was scattered all along the street.
The Red Cross was setting up a shelter at a church.
Brandie Slough, 42, said she and a teen daughter sought safety in a restroom at a Culver’s. Windows of the fast food restaurant were blown out when they emerged, and her pickup truck had been flipped on its roof in the parking lot.
“We shook our heads in disbelief but are thankful to be safe. At that point, who cares about the truck,” Slough said.
Gaylord, known as the “Alpine Village,” is set to celebrate its 100th birthday this year, with a centennial celebration that will include a parade and open house at City Hall later this summer.
The community also holds the annual Alpenfest in July, an Alpine-inspired celebration honoring the city’s heritage and a partnership with a sister city in Switzerland.
