KALMAZOO (WKZO) — Consumers Energy crews have been out this morning restoring power to hundreds of homes in Kalamazoo and in Calhoun County.
A series of storm cells blew up half way across lake Michigan and came on shore at South haven and then marched one after the other last night across Vanburen, Kalamazoo, and Calhoun counties heading east with enough intensity to touch off a tornado warning based on radar data.
But Undersheriff Pauli Matyas says his deputies didn’t see any evidence of that on the ground.
Most of the outages are in the Richland area and north east of Battle Creek.
The real damage from yesterday’s stormy weather occured in the town of Portland, Michigan and once again, residents had no warning that a tornado was coming or even likely.
The National Weather Service traveled last evening to the community just north and west of Lansing and have determined that it was an EF-1 tornado with wind speeds of about 100-mph.
Meteorologist Brandon Hoving says the Tornado cut a swath that was 4 miles long and 50 to 100 yards wide right through the community. .
A dozen businesses, three historic churches, and over 70-homes were destroyed or heavily damaged.
Portland Fire Chief John Baker says everyone survived the initial storm without injury. No one even required a trip to emergency. But one person was injured later in the day trying to remove some of the debris from Monday’s tornado.
