Two Killed, Dozens Injured in Rare Northern Michigan Tornado

GAYLORD, Mich. — A tornado that killed at least two people and injured dozens of others dropped out of the sky in far northern Michigan on Friday and onto a mobile home park before tearing a three-block hole through the small city of Gaylord.

“It all just flashed before my eyes,” said Logan Clayton, 18, who was at home in the Nottingham Forest mobile home park, where the deaths were reported, when the winds became so intense that one window shattered. He recalled seeing “someone getting picked up, trailers getting picked up. It all just happened within 10 seconds and then it was gone.”

As cleanup began on Saturday, and as more than 40 people were treated for injuries, officials struggled to make sense of the damage in a region where tornadoes are rare. One person remained unaccounted for, and crews were searching through wreckage from the EF-3 tornado, which the National Weather Service said had maximum winds of 140 miles per hour.

“We were calling them out by name, trying to see if they were still in their damaged homes,” said Chief Frank Claeys of the Gaylord Police Department. “And when you see that, it’s a lot more personal when our officers know the names of people who live in those homes.”

Forecasters had warned of the potential for severe weather on Friday, but the tornado that hit Gaylord, population 4,300, still came suddenly. A severe thunderstorm warning issued in the afternoon was quickly upgraded to a tornado warning. The city, roughly 230 miles northwest of Detroit, has no tornado sirens, officials said, but people in the area were alerted to the storm by emergency notifications on their cellphones.

Within minutes, a tornado was on the ground, tearing apart the mobile homes and then charging across city limits from west to east. Cars were tossed on top of one another in a Hobby Lobby parking lot. A truck was upended next to a sign for a Culver’s restaurant. The roofs of several businesses had collapsed.

“This storm went a lot of places and did a lot of damages — hit a lot of homes, the commercial corridor,” said Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist, a Democrat who visited Gaylord on Saturday.

“I had to run a block down to our trailer, hopping over trees and rubble, helping people where I could,” said Declan Clayton, 20. “Because there was people crawling out of rubble with injuries. There were people confused. They didn’t know what happened.”

More than 40 people were treated at hospitals for their injuries, and officials said it was possible that others were hurt but had not sought medical attention. So many people needed care that patients were diverted to other hospitals in the region as one in Gaylord filled up.

On Saturday, strip mall parking lots in parts of Gaylord remained fields of debris. A Goodwill store was missing part of its front wall. Smashed bricks and shattered plywood were strewn outside the entrance of a Tropical Smoothie Cafe.

Athena and Steve Sherbert, who were dropping off their daughter for a shift at the smoothie cafe when the storm hit, ended up riding out the tornado in the restaurant’s cooler.

“Right when we were running back to the cooler, that’s when the windows shattered,” said Mr. Sherbert. “I could feel the glass hit the back of my legs.”

Tornadoes are far less common in Michigan than in many other Midwestern states. John Boris, of the National Weather Service office in Gaylord, said the state averaged about 15 tornadoes a year. Most of those occur well to the south of Gaylord, which is about 60 miles from the northern tip of the state’s Lower Peninsula.

Lt. Derrick Carroll, a spokesman for the Michigan State Police, said power outages continued in parts of Gaylord on Saturday and a curfew would remain in place that night. Both people known to have died were in their 70s, he said. One of them was found overnight Friday during a search of the mobile home park with a cadaver dog. Crews continued to look on Saturday for a person who was reported missing.

For those like Jasmine Vandenbrook, whose mobile home was smothered by other trailers and destroyed, the challenge was how to move forward now. Ms. Vandenbrook, 31, who shared the home with five family members, said she had no renters’ insurance. They had only been able to salvage a few items.

“It’s very hard seeing that you have nothing,” said Ms. Vandenbrook, who picked up some donated supplies — blankets, clothes, food — at a local church. “All your belongings, everything just ripped out of your house.”

Her family is now living in a friend’s camper until they can find a place to rent.

Luke Vander Ploeg reported from Gaylord, and Mitch Smith from Chicago.