County marks anniversary of tornado

DAVE MOSIER/independent editor

It was a day that Van Wert County Emergency Management Director Rick McCoy will never forget: that Sunday in 2002 when an F-4 tornado — one of the top 10 storms to ever hit the northeastern United States — ripped through the county, killing two, injuring 19 and doing millions of dollars worth of damage.

While temperatures were in the 70s on that sunny November day back in 2002, McCoy said he had a premonition bad weather was heading toward the county (click here for an updated retrospective on the storm that was first published in 2007 on the fifth anniversary of the tornado).

“I remember that day because you got up and you went outside and it had that eerie feel to it,” McCoy said. “You just knew that something bad was going to happen and I hoped my 12 years as EMA director would pay off in activating my alert system.”

The initial forecast from the Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla., didn’t include anything overtly alarming, noting that, while tornadoes were possible south of the Ohio River, severe thunderstorms would likely be the only thing Ohioans would experience from the storm system.

That changed later, though, as the National Weather Service office in North Webster, Ind., and local television station meteorologists kept a close eye on the developing system.

McCoy, an avid weather enthusiast who studied meteorology at Mississippi State University and was a weekend weather personality at WANE-TV in Fort Wayne, Ind., said the change in atmosphere reminded him of tornado outbreaks on Palm Sunday 1965 and one that devastated Xenia in 1974 that occurred when he was a youngster.

As weather reports continued to come in, McCoy became more concerned and drove to the EMA office at 1:40 in the afternoon so that he could better monitor the situation. He was also thinking about his efforts to increase disaster preparedness in the county and develop a system of storm spotters, weather radios, and tornado sirens — efforts that had resulted in the county being named a “Storm Ready County” by the NWS in January 2002. Those efforts would soon pay off as the worst tornado in Van Wert County history headed this way.

After reports of a smaller tornado in Hartford City, Ind., came in about 2:30 that afternoon and a tornado warning was issued for Adams County, Ind., just across the border, at 2:45 p.m., McCoy sent out his storm spotters, a network consisting of law enforcement officers, firefighters and amateur (ham) radio operators.

At 2:59 that afternoon, an F-3 tornado ripped through the Berne and Monroeville, Ind., area, cutting a five-mile path through the area, and, three minutes later, the NWC issued a tornado warning for Vann Wert County. That’s when McCoy activated his tornado sirens all across the county and began issuing weather statements.

Willshire Fire Department spotters first saw the tornado as it crossed the state line, but the village was spared when the funnel cloud lifted off the ground as it reached Willshire. Spotters reported multiple funnel clouds initially from the massive supercell storm system, but later amended the initial report to state that a quarter-mile tornado was heading across the county and straight for the city of Van Wert.

McCoy said then he was concerned that people were listening to his weather statements and taking storm precautions.

“I had that feeling in my gut that I hoped everyone was getting the word,” he noted.

When spotter reports indicated that the storm was headed for the Van Wert Cinemas, McCoy’s concerns doubled. “I knew that The Santa Clause 2 had just opened at the cinemas and the theater would be packed,” the EMA director noted. After the tornado hit the movie theater complex, destroying two theaters and heavily damaging the other three, McCoy was afraid his fears were realized.

“After hearing that the cinema did take a direct hit, the sick feeling in my gut from knowing that that’s not a good structure to be in,” he recalled.

That was compounded by early reports from local law enforcement personnel who saw the body of Nick Mollenkopf — one of the storm’s two fatalities — who had been killed while driving his car on Lincoln Highway, saw the level of damage at the cinemas, and reported that everyone there had been killed.

After receiving that news from then-Van Wert mayor Steve Gehres, McCoy called state officials to tell them that the state’s mobile mortuary team might be needed in the county.

Fortunately, then-theater assistant manager Scott Shaffer had heeded McCoy’s warnings and herded most of the movie patrons into the complex’s cinder block restroom area, while a few patrons in the smaller theaters dived under seats. All were safe, although the theater complex was severely damaged.

“I was able to call back in a half hour and tell them the mortuary team wouldn’t be needed,” McCoy said, noting his relief when that good news came in.

The EMA director also gave lots of credit to the National Weather Service for their tracking of the storm and accurate predictions of what was occurring.

“Boy, they were right on top of that, tracking that across the area,” McCoy said of the NWS information that day. “They were able to give us play-by-play action of that thing as it just progressed across the county.”

Still, Van Wert County experienced a level of damage never before seen. In addition to the cinemas, 194 houses were damaged, with 46 of those destroyed; and 17 businesses were heavily damaged, with seven of those totally destroyed. In addition, 19 people were injured and Alfred Germann and Mollenkopf died in the storm. The economic loss to the county was estimated at $50 million.

The injuries and deaths could have been much higher if the storm hadn’t hit on a Sunday, McCoy said, which prevented a much heavier loss of life from the tornado. Vision Industrial Park alone would have had hundreds of people working in buildings that were leveled by the storm.

It wasn’t long after the storm hit, though, the recovery efforts began. McCoy said literally thousands of volunteers poured into the county to help local residents with cleanup efforts following the tornado. Those efforts also expanded into neighboring counties, since the tornado blew debris from the county as far as Defiance County and beyond. In fact, purses from KAM Manufacturing were found several counties away.

The county slowly recovered. People rebuilt their homes; factories, some of which relocated temporarily to continue production, were also rebuilt, some bigger than they were before. One storm-related item was that KAM Manufacturing added a full basement to its Grill Road facility so that workers would have some place to shelter in the event of another such storm.

And while McCoy received accolades from the level of preparedness in the county — including being the first people in the U.S. to be named a “Storm Ready Community Hero” by the U.S. Department of Commerce for the advance warning he gave to county residents — he has continued to increase those levels of preparedness in the county.

McCoy said his efforts redoubled after the storm, noting that he now uses social media, especially Twitter and Facebook, to better inform local residents of what is happening in the county, as far as weather-related issues go.

Today, while the National Weather Service models his program around the country in its Storm Ready training, McCoy has added additional sirens as well as many more weather radios in businesses and public buildings, such as schools.

“The storm has prepared us for the next time and certainly we’ve had a lot of bad storms in the last 10 years,” he said. “I hope to continue to upgrade our warning systems and give people the most advanced warning that I can.”