No tornadoes locally; Scott remains without power

Editor’s note: this story has been updated with new information from AEP Ohio.

SCOTT TRUXELL/independent editor

SCOTT — It may be late Thursday afternoon before power is fully restored in the Village of Scott.

A spokeperson from AEP Ohio said Tuesday night’s storm system that rolled through the area caused extensive damage to the equipment that delivers electricity to homes and businesses in the community.

“Specifically, winds broke multiple transmission poles on the north and south sides of County Line Road, complicating restoration efforts,” AEP Ohio told the VW independent via email. “Crews have been working around the clock to safely restore power as quickly as possible and will not stop until everyone’s electricity is back on. Current estimates from our crews in the field are that all customers will have power again by 5 p.m. tomorrow, April 2.”

“We know that extended outages like this are challenging and we are grateful for our customers’ understanding,” the email also said.

To help, Van Wert County CERT is distributing water and ice donated by Walmart to Scott residents affected by the outage. It’s available at the Lions Club, but there is a limit of one case of water and one bag of ice per household.

While a wall cloud was very evident throughout Van Wert County Tuesday evening, there were no confirmed tornado touchdowns in Van Wert or Paulding counties. Spotters with the Scott Fire Department saw rotation in the clouds but advised nothing touched down.

According to Van Wert County EMA Director Rick McCoy, the highest wind gust in the county Tuesday evening was 59 miles per hour at the Hoaglin Township house.

A EF-1 tornado with peak winds of 95 miles per hour did touch down just southeast of Hicksville.

According to the National Weather Service Northern Indiana, it was embedded within a large swath of damaging straight line winds associated with a bookend vortex The tornado was on the ground for two minutes and traveled 2.7 miles with a maximum width of 25 yards. It caused some minor tree damage in a wooded area before destroying a large pole barn. The twister then moved through open fields before removing much of the roof off a new construction single family home. No one was injured.

Surrounding damage throughout southern Defiance County was determined to be from straight line winds of 60-80 mph.

The storm also brought rain to the area and it continued throughout the night and much of Wednesday. As of late Wednesday afternoon, rainfall rates ranged from 1.5 inches in the southern portion of Van Wert County to 2.28 inches at the EMA Office on Lincoln Highway.