{"id":194016,"date":"2025-06-18T22:34:14","date_gmt":"2025-06-19T03:34:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=194016"},"modified":"2025-06-20T00:58:27","modified_gmt":"2025-06-20T05:58:27","slug":"city-of-van-wert-slammed-by-wednesdays-storm-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2025\/06\/18\/city-of-van-wert-slammed-by-wednesdays-storm-system\/","title":{"rendered":"Van Wert slammed by storm system"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

SCOTT TRUXELL\/<\/strong>independent editor<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was a quick hitting storm system but in just a matter of minutes, Van Wert experienced powerful straight line winds, a microburst and a gustnado, but no tornado.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The storm left behind a wide path of damage, especially within the Van Wert city limits, prompting Van Wert County EMA Director Rick McCoy to say it\u2019s the most damage he\u2019s seen in the city since the June 29, 2012 derecho.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Several trees at the Marsh Foundation were damaged or destroyed by Wednesday’s storm. Photo courtesy of Christopher Elder<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

It blew into Van Wert County at approximately 6 p.m., packing high winds and intense rain for a few minutes. McCoy said the storm seemed to intensify around Liberty-Union Rd.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt came into town and we had a wind gust at the fairgrounds of 59 miles per hour and 55 at the EMA Office,\u201d McCoy said. \u201cWhen you get 60 mile per hour winds with trees that are full of leaves, you\u2019re going to start having damage because that wind will start twisting and snapping them. Driving around and looking at the damage afterward mostly in the city, I saw at least 100 trees that had some pretty significant damage or were destroyed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trees fell on homes, garages and cars, fell across streets and roads and took down power lines, but McCoy said as of late Wednesday night, no injuries were reported. In addition, a semi-truck was blown over on U.S. 30 between Stripe Rd. and Mendon Rd.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDrawing that line from Liberty-Union Rd. across the city to U.S. 30, there was one portion of that storm that intensified and it was clear a microburst had occurrred,\u201d he stated. \u201cIt intensified near Washington St. just north of the jail and the whole northeast portion of the city took the brunt of that microburst.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

There was at least one report of a funnel cloud that touched down near Quail Run apartments but after reviewing video taken by a resident, McCoy determined it as actually a gustnado.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA gustnado forms differently \u2013 it doesn\u2019t come from a thunderstorm down but it forms from the ground up,\u201d he explained. \u201cWhen you get those 65-70 mile per hour winds going through buildings, the air will spin so fast that it will grab all the dirt, leaves and everything and spin up a funnel from the ground. You\u2019ll have some rotation from it but it\u2019s not really doing that much damage. There\u2019s no indication we had an actual tornado.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rest of the damage in the city and the county was caused by straight line winds, including substantial damage to several trees at the Marsh Foundation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Along with downed trees and other damage, the storm left power outages around the city, including 12 transmission poles that came down east of Vantage Career Center, along with several in front of Trinity Friends Church. Those poles feed the northern portion of Van Wert.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before the storm hit the county and city, McCoy activated the county\u2019s spotter network. Earlier in the day, he requested games at all ballparks in the county be canceled in anticipation of the approaching storm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cleanup efforts will likely take several days and McCoy said residents need to prepare for the next weather event \u2013 a heatwave that will arrive this weekend and last into next week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have to watch that because we\u2019re getting into the period of derechos, where we\u2019ll have a multi-complex storm system that will form in the Plains and go across multiple states,\u201d McCoy said. \u201cIt happens when we get those heat events and thunderstorms.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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Strong winds toppled metal tables and chairs outside of Truly D’vine on W. Main St. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SCOTT TRUXELL\/independent editor It was a quick hitting storm system but in just a matter of minutes, Van Wert experienced powerful straight line winds, a microburst and a gustnado, but no tornado. The storm left behind a wide path of damage, especially within the Van Wert city limits, prompting Van Wert County EMA Director Rick […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-194016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-15 22:41:47","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194016"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194016\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":194074,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194016\/revisions\/194074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}