Powerful Thursday storms spawn tornados, 4-inch hail

A powerful line of severe thunderstorms caused significant damage in parts of western and east-central Wisconsin on Thursday evening. The cities of Juneau and Mayville are cleaning up after a suspected tornado damaged homes and commercial buildings, while residents near Eau Claire reported damage to vehicles and homes from hail as large as 4 inches.

Meteorologist Kevin Wagner of the National Weather Service’s office in Sullivan told WPR a line of storms swept through Wisconsin along a line from the Twin Cities into Illinois. He said significant hail was reported from Madison up through the Mississippi River Valley. Wagner said as the system moved eastward, “we saw a bit more rotation.”

“And we had a couple of indications that there may be tornadoes with it,” Wagner said. “We have seen reports and got damage reports around there from tornado damage. So we’re actually sending out a team there to kind of survey it.”

The worst damage from tornadoes occurred in the Dodge County cities of Juneau and Mayville. During a press conference Thursday evening, Dodge County Sheriff Dale Schmidt said the storms hit at about 6 p.m.

“I’m happy to report that at this point, we really have had very little in the way of injury,” Schmidt said. “We’ve got one person that was transported to the hospital for some injuries here in the city of Juneau. I believe there may have been another minor injury or two that have occurred. Which is a fantastic thing when you consider the severity of some of the damage that we have seen.”

Schmidt said when he was driving toward Juneau, he saw what he described “a rain-wrapped tornado,” though he said it’s up to the National Weather Service to confirm whether the damage was from a tornado or strong winds. That confirmation eventually came Friday.

“At the time, I could not see it,” Schmidt said. “So, certainly frightening when you have this kind of severity of weather and severity of damage. That is certainly why the power lines and things are down. Certainly very traumatic for a lot of people, but we have people that are helping them.”

Juneau Police Chief Dave Beal said properties were damaged and power lines were knocked down by the storm. 

“Our main transformer feeder system for the electric was affected by this, and we got crews working on restoring that. We’re projecting power could be out for up to one to two days,” Beal said.

A manufacturing area in southwest Mayville was hit hard by the tornado. It tore up roofs and buildings at Seneca Foods and Gleason Reel, and it blew a wall off Mayville Engineering Company.

Under a tree on Mayville Engineering Company’s front lawn, Teofilo Ozorio ate lunch with his coworkers. Their property restoration crew had been working since 5 a.m.

“We still have to be careful because all these huge walls can fall down any time soon,” he said.

Across the street, cinder blocks from Gleason Reel’s walls were lodged in employees’ cars. They’d been working second shift as the storm hit. But there were no injuries at the plant, said plant manager Ross Fassbinder.

On Main Street in downtown Mayville, people cleaned their yards and helped neighbors.

One of them, Nate Lane, said his neighbor’s roof was blown across the driveway and into his house.

“The neighbor’s roof is leaned up against the side of our house now,” he said. “Not the color match we were hoping for, but it’s what we’ve got right now.”

One street over, Tony Groh watched a crew clearing a row of downed trees. Dangling power lines hung down to the sidewalk.

“Lines are just all over the place,” he said. “Unfortunately, we have them blocking our driveway, so we’re kind of stuck here right now.”

His neighbor was letting him drive out through his backyard, Groh said.

Back on Main Street, 17-year-old Coleson Fiore cleaned debris with his family. Thursday was his last day at Mayville High School, and his family was setting up their front porch for guests when the storm hit.

“The sirens went off, so then we went down to the basement,” he said.

Half an hour later, he said, the power went out. Then it started hailing loudly.

When they came back out around 6:30 p.m., they saw a tree had crushed their front porch. Branches littered the street.

“From the cheese factory to the intersection on Horicon Street, that was completely blocked off,” he said.

Neighbors and volunteers with chainsaws got busy as soon as the storm passed, Fiore said.

“We had, like, 30 people with chainsaws on this thing, on this tree here,” he said, pointing at his house. “Cutting off all those branches.”

On Friday morning, the tree’s trunk was still on Fiore’s porch. Mayville School District Superintendent Scott Sabol said Friday classes were cancelled, but Sunday’s graduation ceremony is still on so that students who are headed to military basic training can take part.

“We are a resilient community and a Cardinal family,” Sabol said. “We decided that we wanted to make sure that all of our kids were able to participate.”

Video on social media showed what appeared to be a tornado on the ground in St. Croix County north of the city of New Richmond on Thursday afternoon. Meteorologist Jake Beitlich of the National Weather Service office in Chanhassen, Minnesota said damage was also to the northeast in Rusk County near the city of Ladysmith. 

“So, there’s quite a bit of damage out there,” Beitlich said. “Some of it was probably from thunderstorm winds, but some of it was probably tornadic.”

Along the city of Eau Claire’s south side and into neighboring Altoona, residents posted pictures of very large hail. Altoona Police Department Lt. Scott Kelley said there were no injuries reported.

“However, there’s been a lot of property damage,” Kelley said. “Siding, roof, windows, vehicles, the city in general … there’s a lot of residential buildings around town that have damage to them.”

He said residents have already reported potential scammers calling them and asking about the hail damage to their homes.

“We’ve been kind of recommending that people work with their insurance company a lot of times,” Kelley said. “The insurance companies have good resources and legitimate, trusted resources they can offer to their customers.”