ONTONAGON -- Ontonagon village workers say what started as a quiet morning turned dark and intense in a matter of moments.
“We looked down on the bottom of the river down there and the water was, I guess it was funneling up, and it was going up into a big cloud down there and it was pulling the water out of the river, and it was also taking the brush and the trees and bending the trees over," said Jerry Roehm, a village worker and an eyewitness.
Severe winds gushed through parts of Ontonagon County Friday morning, uprooting trees and snapping several power poles.
“The power company obviously took a hit with all the down lines. This is not just here; this is a major feeder line but there's down lines in quite a few places in town,” said Bill Johnson of Ontonagon County Emergency Management.
“Damages, of course, to the trees around here, and it’s going to take some work and effort to clean that up," Johnson added.
Although residents here say it lasted only about thirty seconds, strong winds pushed this once snowmobile trailer into a neighbor’s yard across the street.
"It started getting windier, breeze was picking up and I said, 'Honey, we better do something now,’ and I’m standing there and all of a sudden my air conditioner just went straight out the window, and I started hearing glass smash,” said resident Bill LaCoste.
What followed is a sound LaCoste says he's never heard before.
"When they say it sounds like a freight train coming by, it did. I mean the whole house was like a tremor--the house was starting to shake--it didn’t sound good,” LaCoste said.
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