Tornado Touches Down in Indiana, Killing 2

Charles Lannan was watching TV early Wednesday when the storm outside suddenly grew ominously quiet. The next thing he knew, his mobile home was in the air and he felt himself in a free fall, thinking he would never see daylight again.

“I was thinking, ‘Oh God, this is it,’ ” he said. “All I remember was rolling. It was like, one one-thousand, two one-thousand and it was over. I started digging myself out of the rubble.”

Lannan was caught up in a tornado that swept through northwestern Tippecanoe County, two miles north of Purdue University, killing two people and injuring more than 60 others.

It ripped through the Lafayette Venetian Blind Factory, killing an employee who was working at a loading dock. Most workers already were out of the building when the tornado hit because the factory’s electricity had failed.

The twister picked up a car, tumbling it end over end several times and dumping it in a nearby field, officials said.

Five homes were destroyed at the Prairie View Farms subdivision, where a second body was found buried in the rubble.

At least 70 trailers were destroyed at the Sagamore Village Estates mobile home park before the tornado skipped over U.S. 52, struck two buildings and went airborne, said Tippecanoe County sheriff’s Capt. Dave Murtaugh.

Elsewhere, funnel clouds were spotted Wednesday in Oklahoma, Arkansas and Tennessee, but there were no immediate reports of damage.

Most of those injured by the West Lafayette tornado were in the trailer park. One person was in critical condition at St. Elizabeth Hospital in Lafayette.

More than 250 people were evacuated immediately after the twister struck. Rescuers with dogs combed the trailer park for most of the day, looking for anyone who might still be buried under the debris.

Leaking gas from ruptured lines fueled a blaze that destroyed at least four trailer homes, said Dave Beaty, Wabash Township’s fire chief.

“They weren’t homes by the time they caught fire,” Beaty said. “They’d already been destroyed by the tornado.”

The Red Cross operated shelters at the Lafayette National Guard Armory and at a Purdue gym, which was not damaged.