DeWine and Other State Officials Tour Indian Lake Area Today

Gov Mike DeWine, along with other state officials, toured the hard hit Indian Lake area today.

The National Weather Service confirmed an EF2 tornado caused widespread devastation in the area of Indian Lake between Lakeview and Russells Point.

The governor said one message he heard from first responders and residents alike is, “We are coming back, and it’s not lost on any of us that the summer season is almost here, so we’re going to continue to work with local officials from the Governor’s Office, and we’ve already started talking among ourselves about some of the things that we can do to be of help and we’re going to again continue to do that and work very, very hard with the local elected officials.”

Lt. Gov. Jon Husted said he was impressed with the residents’ resiliency, “Even in some of their voices, gratitude that it wasn’t worse, that they didn’t have more damage, that they didn’t have loss of life. I talked to one group of people who went into their crawl space just seconds before the tornado hit, and you just hear their stories. You empathize with the situation that they are in, but you can just look around at this room and see the resilience and commitment to each other and why this community will recover strong and be better than ever.”

State Sen Rob McColley was overwhelmed by the number of donations that packed Indian Lake High School, “Everything from diapers to baby clothes to clothes for adults to toiletries to anything to help this community rebound. Frankly they even told us before we came into this room that it was going to be full of stuff and it still didn’t prepare me. This is what we were told from a school administrator before we walked in what we refer to as the lake effect.”

Rep Jon Cross told the residents, Indian Lake will be rebuilt, “However many nickels, dimes or quarters it’s going to take, we’re going to get the money and we’re going to fund and get Indian Lake back on its feet. This community has had a challenging time with the issues of the water and the weed vegetation and we were right there fighting it and we’re going to be right there to get Indian Lake right back on its feet.”

Three people were confirmed dead and over a dozen people were injured as a result of the Thursday evening storm.