Storm damage apparent in Tippecanoe County

TIPPECANOE COUNTY, Ind. (WLFI) - The Gevers family spent about half an hour watching the storm rip through their backyard Thursday night. The next morning, they spent several hours cleaning up the mess, picking up branches and limbs of the trees that remained.

"Before the storm hit, this was a solid line of trees and you couldn't see the house from out there in the runway," said Tippecanoe County resident Dave Gevers. "Now, there are plenty of openings to see through. I'd say about half of these trees in this line have been taken out."

Gevers said he believes the strong winds are what caused many of his trees to split in half.

According to Tippecanoe County Emergency Management Director Smokey Anderson, wind speeds from Thursday night's storm measured up to 60 miles per hour.

Yet, Gevers said the storm seemed very selective about whose property it would hit.  

"It was very narrow," said Gevers. "Half a mile that way, half a mile that way there's hardly any damage."

That includes Gevers' son Rob, who lives with his wife less than a mile from his parents. Rob said they only experienced hail at their house, and said it wasn't until he stopped by his parents' house that he realized they lucked out.

"Dad called me last night and said that they had a bunch of trees down and asked if we were ok," said Rob Gevers. "So, we got in the car and then drove out here, and got to about where the first tree is down, and realized we weren't going to get very far."

That's because the Gevers' had three large trees that had fallen blocking the driveway. The father and son duo got to work around 8:00 Friday morning and spent about an hour removing those trees alone.

"Fortunately, we have a four-wheel drive tractor with a fork lift on the front of it, that helped a lot," said Dave. "Sometimes the back wheels would come off the ground because the weight would come on to the forks and lift the back end up. So,

Dave said although they spent about half of the day picking up debris, he's just thankful there was no damage to his house, and said looking on the bright side of things, they will have plenty of firewood come winter.