The sky flashed green above Danny Karas’ house Thursday night, the color of the aurora borealis. He was down the street at his parents’ house in the Fieldstone neighborhood on Bloomington’s west side.
Karas, 34, heard the wind howling, alongside the news channel chatter telling them the storm had touched ground at the Monroe County Airport, about a quarter mile away.
As he hunkered down in the bathroom, debris, trees and branches swirled around yards outside, plastic siding flew off and lodged into other houses. It sounded like bullets hitting the wall, Karas said. The storm vanished outdoor furniture from back patios, ripped roofs off homes and caked grass and dirt in every crack and corner. Karas was scared.
The National Weather Service issued a tornado warning at 6:39 p.m. for Monroe County, extending it through 7:30 p.m. In that time, winds reaching up to 70 miles per hour wreaked havoc across Monroe County.
Monroe County Sheriff’s Department spokesperson Jeffrey Brown said no injuries or deaths were reported as a result of the storm.
NWS determined an EF2 tornado hit Monroe County. It lasted from 6:57-7:06 p.m., caused peak winds up to 120 mph and traveled 3.7 miles. Tornadoes rated two on the Enhanced Fujita scale, a common metric for tornado strength that runs from 0-5, are “significant” and can have wind speeds between 111 and 135 mph.
NWS also tracked EF0 tornadoes in Bible Grove, Illinois and Sullivan, Indiana, on Thursday night.
At about 8 p.m., Karas said the neighborhood came alive. People emerged from their storm-ravaged homes and flooded the street with flashlights, assessing the damage and asking their neighbors how they could help. Some of Karas' friends came by to make sure he was okay. He talked to people he hadn’t spoken to in years.
“When a big storm, something like this happens, everybody comes out, everybody's asking if you need help,” Karas said. “It's kind of sad that disasters like this kind of bring people closer.”
Jeanie Wright, 76, lives a street over from Karas and heard a loud pop when the storm picked up. She felt like the windows on each side of her house were going to give out.
The storm had plucked her neighbors’ fences out of the ground and littered yards with broken glass. A few doors down from Wright, white insulation coated a house, giving the impression that a spontaneous bout of snow blanketed the property’s tree, car, driveway and garage.
White insulation litters the ground at a woman's home Feb. 20, 2026, on South Bosell Court in Bloomington. A storm the day before left more than 1,200 Monroe County residents without power.
At 9:30 p.m. Thursday, more than 1,200 Monroe County residents didn’t have power.
On Friday morning, the Fieldstone neighborhood was busy with roofing, electrical and construction companies working to repair homes and cut down dangling tree branches.
The morning mail was delivered to the mailboxes that remained and given by hand to some. Neighbors worked together to repair fences, clear debris and move strewn trees.
“We’re a tight area here on our street,” Wright said. “We always help. We don't maybe see each other every day, you know, like some people do, but when there's trouble, we're here.”
Nichole Hoffman and her partner don’t have a basement. The pair curled up under a blanket with their three dogs as the roaring winds blew down a tree and tore apart the gazebo in their backyard.
After the worst of the storm moved on, she said a neighbor who worked with a roofing contractor brought in employees right away outside of regular hours to help prevent further damage to her house.
“They were like our angels,” Hoffman said.
AMI Roofing Contractors work to repair Nichole Hoffman's home Feb. 20, 2026, on West Bedrock Road in Bloomington. Her neighbor who worked with a roofing contractor brought employees into the neighborhood right after the storm to help prevent further damage.
Less than a mile down the road, the wind uprooted a four-ton shipping container at the Monroe County Humane Association. Large divots in the ground at nearly perfect right angles evidenced its journey bouncing across the association’s backyard before coming to rest more than 500 feet away.
A shipping container lays on Monroe County Humane Association property Feb. 20, 2026, at 791 S. Fieldstone Blvd. in Bloomington. The container moved more than 500 feet during the storm.
Pill bottles and pet food lay strewn across the six-acre property. The tornado imploded a temporary building housing hundreds of containers of food and other materials, mostly donated
The building’s power generator worked so hard that it turned molten red before electricians pulled the plug on it, MCHA Executive Director Andrew Krebbs said.
He was one of the first on the scene to survey the damage.
“I had just left here and I had just gotten to outside of Bedford when I started getting texts and calls from staff of like, ‘hey, we're on the cameras with the animals. We can see debris and wind,’” Krebbs said. “And then I turned around.”
All the outdoor animal play areas were scoured and most of the fences ripped and bent from the ground. The wind tore several holes in the roof, nearly ripping off an entire side.
The five cats and five dogs housed in the building were uninjured. The storm broke a window leading directly to the cat room, Krebbs said, but they appeared unbothered when employees arrived to retrieve them.
Most of the animals housed at the MCHA are long term residents, Krebbs said. Some animals were relocated to nearby animal shelters, while others went home with MCHA employees. The damage will mainly impact the association’s veterinary clinic, which treats more than 100 animals each week.
“We provide about $150,000 of free vet care every year,” Krebbs said. “That's lacking. We won't be supporting people with that until we can reopen.”
Though the external damage is the most evident, Krebbs and MCHA board member Valerie Peña worried more about the water damage that could cause mold and longer-lasting damage to the clinic.
“The structure is fine, but depending on how bad that damage is, it could mean that we're open in a couple of weeks or months,” Krebbs said.
Emergency responders and volunteers are still picking up debris across the city. Along with Fieldstone and MCHA, businesses such as Fifth Third Bank and Arby’s near I-69 still sport damages or large chunks of debris. Some Bloomington residents remain without power, according to Duke Energy’s website, with reports centered in Fieldstone and the Vinegar Hill district.
Debris lays on the ground at the Fifth Third Bank drive through Feb. 20, 2026, at 3415 W. Third St. in Bloomington. A storm the day before caused more than 1,200 residents to lose power.
Kirby Road near the county airport and Highland Village were among the hardest hit areas, according to a Monroe County Emergency Management Agency press release Friday. People are recommended to stay at least 30 feet away from downed power lines and should report them to local utilities, the release stated.
In the release, MCEMA announced new public dumpsters at 5332 W. Stonewood Drive for disposal of debris, with one dumpster for vegetation and natural debris and one for household debris.
