SULLIVAN County, Ind. (WTWO/WAWV) – Agents from the Federal Emergency Management Agency began assessing damage from Friday night’s tornado in Sullivan County on Sunday morning.
A powerful storm system rushed through the region late Friday spawning what the National Weather Service in Indianapolis preliminarily thinks was a tornado that produced peak winds of 155 mph and killed three people in Sullivan County. A storm with those kinds of winds is considered to be a category of EF-3.
The storm also devastated Robinson in Crawford Co., Ill., killing three people there and injuring others before crossing the river and slamming into Sullivan Co., Ind. Sullivan City Mayor Clint Lamb said Saturday that 200 homes in the county had been damaged by the storm, with 155 of those being inside the Sullivan City limits. Most of the damage occurred on the south side of town.
Sullivan County Commissioner John Waterman said Sunday morning that FEMA was in the county assessing the damage from the storm and asked that no one return to clean up their properties until after the FEMA assessment, which he said could take several days. WTWO/WAWV will follow the FEMA assessment and report once it is complete.
A news conference was scheduled in Sullivan City for 12:30 p.m. ET to update on the situation. A WTWO/WAWV reporter and photographer will be there.
