![Tornado strikes Michigan, claiming the life of a toddler, as Ohio and Maryland brace for impact Tornado strikes Michigan, claiming the life of a toddler, as Ohio and Maryland brace for impact](https://i0.wp.com/WFMJ.images.worldnow.com/images/static/hdr/hdr_mobile.gif?w=1200&resize=1200,0&ssl=1)
Tornado hits Michigan, kills toddler, while Ohio and Maryland – WFMJ.com News Weather Sports for Youngstown-Warren Ohio
Tornado hits Michigan, killing toddler, while storms in Ohio and Maryland injure 13 others
LIVONIA, Mich. (KeynoteUSA) — Storms that spawned tornadoes swept across the eastern United States on Wednesday, killing a toddler in a Detroit suburb and injuring five in Maryland and injuring eight more people in Ohio early Thursday.
A suspected tornado tore the canopy off a gas station and severely damaged a restaurant and discount store early Thursday in the eastern Ohio village of Frazeysburg. Eight people suffered minor injuries, mostly from flying debris, said Jeff Jadwin, director of emergency management in Muskingum County.
The storm’s path followed the town’s main street, leaving a trail of uprooted trees and damaged homes from one end to the other, he said. He estimated that at least 100 homes were hit, several of which were destroyed. The town of 1,500 people is about 50 miles (80 kilometers) east of Columbus.
Authorities in Livonia, Michigan, said the tornado tore through several neighborhoods Wednesday afternoon and developed so quickly that there was no advance warning from the National Weather Service or others that normally would have triggered warning sirens.
The storm uprooted a huge tree that fell on a family’s home and crashed through the roof, landing on a bed where a woman and her 2-year-old son were sleeping, officials said in a post on the city’s website. Crews worked for nearly an hour to remove the roof and parts of the tree and then lift it to remove the victims.
The boy was pronounced dead at the scene, authorities said. The mother was taken to a local hospital in critical condition.
A two-week-old sibling who was in a crib in a separate room was not injured but was taken to a hospital for evaluation, Livonia Fire Department Chief Robert Jennison told WDIV-TV.
“This is a terrible tragedy for our community,” Mayor Maureen Miller Brosnan said in the statement. “Our hearts are also broken and we send our deepest condolences.”
The Detroit Weather Service confirmed on social platform X that an EF1 tornado with a maximum wind speed of 153 kilometers per hour passed through Livonia. The agency said the tornado traveled a path of more than 5 miles (8 kilometers), uprooting trees and damaging some homes.
A weather service representative called it a rising storm that didn’t appear on their radars in enough time to issue a warning, according to city officials.
Late Thursday morning, 14,000 customers were without power in southeastern Michigan, DTE Energy said.
It’s been a grim spring for tornadoes in the United States, where bad weather killed at least 24 people over the Memorial Day holiday weekend alone. April had the second highest number of tornadoes on record in the country. The storms occur as climate change overall contributes to the severity of storms around the world.
Tornado warnings were issued Wednesday night for parts of several other states, including Ohio, New Jersey and Delaware. In coastal New Hampshire, storms downed trees and caused power outages.
In Maryland, emergency workers responded to reports that people were trapped inside collapsed structures after a tornado struck Wednesday night. In Gaithersburg, there were reports of three collapsed structures with people trapped inside, Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Service spokesman Pete Piringer said. The most significant damage occurred when a large tree fell on a home, injuring five people who were taken to hospitals, including one with traumatic injuries, he said. No serious injuries were reported in the other structures.
“We were very lucky in Montgomery County, with two different tornadoes that occurred during rush hour, evening rush hour, and people at home, eating dinner at home,” Earl Stoddard, director of the Office of Traffic Management. Montgomery County Emergency and Homeland. Security, he said at a briefing Thursday morning. “We were very fortunate that the damage in Montgomery County was not substantially worse.”
The focus Thursday will be on clearing and opening roads that are still closed and helping families whose homes suffered the most serious damage, Stoddard said.
Images from local television showed large fallen trees that damaged houses as they fell.
According to Kevin Rodriguez, senior meteorologist at the weather service office in Sterling, Virginia, there were nine different areas with possible tornado damage in Maryland that crews will survey, noting whether there was one missed tornado or different tornadoes. The office issued 22 tornado warnings Wednesday, the fourth most issued in a single day by the office covering much of Maryland, the District of Columbia, northern Virginia and eastern West Virginia, Rodriguez said.
In Berkeley and Jefferson counties in West Virginia, there were images of what were likely tornadoes on the ground, Rodriguez said. Based on the video, he said they can confirm four tornadoes in Maryland, two in Montgomery County from Poolesville to Gaithersburg and east of Olney, one in the Arbutus area of Baltimore County and another near the Carroll County Regional Airport in Westminster. Those areas will still have to be inspected over the next few days to see how strong they were.
“In early June it’s especially rare to have so many tornadoes,” Rodriguez said. “This was pretty prolific for early June.”
In Portsmouth, New Hampshire, fires at two homes on opposite ends of town are believed to have been started by lightning strikes that occurred within 15 minutes of each other, Fire Chief William McQuillen said. Both homes were damaged and one was deemed uninhabitable. No injuries were reported.
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