Storms cause road, property damage in Bloomington area

Powerful storms caused serious damage to roads and buildings Wednesday night.

Mike Pershing, Monroe County Chief Deputy Sheriff , said that most major roads — in particular State Road 45 — sustained heavy damage. Most of the major roads were being cleared as of noon Thursday, but it is possible that there are county roads are impassable as they had not yet been surveyed, Pershing said.

The Bloomington Police Department said that so many roads were impassible that it was difficult, if not impossible, to list all of them, and was not able to give more details on which roads might be closed as of noon Thursday.

A mobile home neighborhood named Sam Mason Properties on the west side of Bloomington was hit very hard. Pershing said that two children, ages 14 and 7, were trapped inside of one of the mobile homes there. The fire department helped extricate them from the mobile home, Pershing said. The children emerged with no serious injuries.

Fourteen people were treated by paramedics for storm-related injuries, but only one was admitted with non-life threatening injuries, said Amanda Roach, the communications director at Bloomington Hospital.

Pershing said he was unsure if a tornado had caused the damage or if had simply been particularly strong straight-line winds.

Trees are down across the city for the second time this week after several waves of strong storm cells passed through the Bloomington area Wednesday night. The National Weather Service in Indianapolis issued at least four separate tornado warnings for parts of Monroe County Wednesday evening.