The National Weather Service in Indianapolis confirmed Thursday afternoon that the tornado Bartholomew County residents saw Wednesday night was an EF-2, with estimated peak wind speeds of 112 mph.
The tornado touched down at 8:44 p.m. near I-65 in southwest Bartholomew County and continued northeast for 13.6 miles. It almost reached Hartsville before dissipating at 8:57 p.m.
“Damage was nearly continuous along this path with damage mostly in the EF0 and EF1 categories. However, there were two areas of more intense damage consistent with low end EF2 category,” the NWS report said.
No injuries or deaths were reported.
Read more: Tornadoes damage central Indiana farm buildings, mobile home
Meteorologist Alexander McGinnis with NWS Indianapolis said tornadoes can be classified from the type of damage that’s happened. A team surveyed the affected areas this morning.
“It's whatever we encounter,” he said. “And then the type of material, how it's damaged, you know, how well anchored a building maybe was to the ground, maybe it's something that should have been able to resist lighter winds but it wasn't well anchored.”
EF-2 damage found included some well-built farm buildings that had collapsed roofs and walls. Included in the EF-1 damage were some broken utility poles and twisted transmission towers.
As of 4 p.m. Thursday, Bartholomew County REMC reported 433 outages. Duke Energy reported one main outage affecting around 70 customers.
This story has been updated.
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