High winds causes damage, power outages across Indiana

Winds gusting more than 50 mph blew over semitrailers and knocked down power lines across Indiana on Friday as the state avoided the worst of a storm that dumped more than a foot of snow elsewhere in the Midwest.\nA wind gust toppled a tree onto a mobile home in Greencastle, Ind., midway between Terre Haute and Indianapolis, the National Weather Service said. Winds blew over three semitrailers along Interstate 65 a few miles south of Indianapolis and others on highways near Muncie and Winchester in eastern Indiana. No injuries were reported.\nAt least 40,000 homes and businesses were without electricity at some point Friday, including some 21,000 in Indianapolis, 7,000 in the Muncie area and about 2,500 around Kokomo.\nNumerous schools across the state closed early because of power outages.\nDonna Meadows, the principal of Hoosier Road Elementary School in the northern Indianapolis suburb of Fishers, said the lights flickered several times before the power went out about 11 a.m.\n"You could hear the wind ... and hear things around the roof rattling," Meadows said. "We had to walk messages around to everybody, no intercoms, no phones, no telephones in the classrooms. We relied a lot on walkie-talkies and physically going to classrooms."\nElectricity remained out to at least 19,000 customers at nightfall, with work restoring all power not expected to be completed until Saturday evening.\nA nativity scene set up on Monument Circle in Indianapolis was blown over, and the Christmas lights on the 284-foot-tall Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument were knocked out. A vacant building without a roof also collapsed elsewhere in the city.\nThe weather service recorded about a half-inch of snow at South Bend. Residents in some flood-prone areas also dealt with high water after 1 to 4 inches of rain fell in much of the state Thursday into Friday.