By Matthew W. Seeger, Ph.D., WSU Contributor
Credit: Photo by Frank Peters at Flickr (http://flic.kr/p/58Pma)
On March 15, a probable F 2 tornado tore through my hometown of Dexter, Michigan. At 5:07 p.m the first warning siren echoed through Dexter while torrential rains and 1 inch hail came down.
Twenty-six minutes later a tornado skipped through this small village of about 4,000 middle class homes, subdivisions and stately trees, leveling about 15 homes, and severely damaging about 100 houses. More than 200 residents were displaced. Despite immense damage, no serious injuries were reported.
My house was spared and except for some water in the basement due to power outage to the sump pump was spared all but the most minor of inconveniences.
This was my fourth serious tornado and gave me the opportunity to observe community disaster response close up. Continue reading
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