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Mooresville starts cleaning up after EF1 tornado damages downtown

MOORESVILLE, Ind. (WISH) — The National Weather Service confirmed Thursday that an EF1 tornado touched down in Mooresville Wednesday night.

Debris now litters downtown Mooresville and roofs can be found in yards, several blocks away from the buildings they came from.

“Just a lot of different elements of evidence of straight line winds,” David Maurer said. “And again, right up the corner here, you’re going to see some significant damage on some of the building structures.”

Residents say there was no siren, just something that sounded like a train as winds tore through the town, and it was over in minutes.

“The power went out, I grabbed my dog and ran over to my parents’ house because they live really close,” Cassie Donges said. “By the time I got everything ready and grabbed my dog it was already started. Once I hit outside, I got a tornado warning. So I booked it to my parents house, I got hit with a tree branch and then it was crazy. You can hear in the wind and everything.”

There was a lot of damage done, but it can’t all be seen just by looking around. Power outages affected much of the downtown area.

That puts Churches in Mission food pantry in a tight spot. Maurer is the executive director of the pantry. He says many residents rely on their services, especially during the public health crisis.

“We’re concerned because we have frozen goods and refrigerated goods that we’re going to have to deal with,” Maurer said. “Throughout the day here to get those transferred. Over to other facilities.”

Residents say they just recovered from another storm a couple of weeks ago, so they’ll be able to again.

“I think this is just a great testimony of how resilient Moorseville is and Morgan County is,” Maurer said.

“Just kind of help as needed and make sure friends and family are safe,” Donges said.