The National Weather Service has officially announced that it was a tornado that hit Silver Lake Sunday afternoon. The EF-2 tornado was estimated to have wind speeds of 125 mph and spanned 150 yards as it traveled on the ground for 4 miles.

The tornado hit at about 3:43 p.m. along SR 15 just south of the Kosciusko County/Wabash County line and traveled 3 miles east of Silver Lake. It caused significant damages to a farm owned by Larry and Therese Shull where a grain bin was destroyed and a farm owned by Darren and Teresa Gay.

However, in The Pines, a residential neighborhood northeast of Warsaw, a tornado was not to blame for many downed power lines and trees that crashed through roofs and smashed vehicles. Kosciusko County Emergency Management Director Ed Rock said after he inspected the area early Monday, he suspected straight line winds were to blame. The NWS has also ruled straight line winds – gusts estimated at 60 mph – were responsible for those damages.

Although at least one resident of The Pines said he saw a tornado, Rock explained, “From the ground, a down burst from a cloud could be difficult to discern,” saying that, to the untrained eye, those can appear to be tornadoes.

“In reality, we don’t have a huge amount of damage,” Rock added. “We will need every bit of damage reported to meet the criteria for federal disaster aid.” In Kosciusko County, that means approximately $260,000 in uninsured damages are needed. Uninsured damages are the cost of insurance deductibles.

Rock said damages were spread out throughout the county and also included the Tucker farm on SR 19 in Mentone, Bambi Roofing in Atwood, and areas of North Webster and Milford.

However, due to the EF-2 tornado that hit Kokomo, Rock said it’s possible the state, as a whole, will qualify for disaster funding. Anyone with damages must report it to be counted as part of the county and state total. Damages need to be reported at the Indiana Department of Homeland Security website.

Kosciusko REMC announces this morning that with its crews and additional crews working through the night, there are now roughly six members still without power. KREMC Operations Department is waiting for broken transmission poles to be replaced by another utility.

KREMC crews will be working to clear debris from lines and rectify leaning poles over the next several days. If you do not have power, you are encouraged to called the KREMC office at 574-267-6331 or 800-790-7362.

“We would like to thank our members for their patience as we worked to restore power over the past two days,” said KREMC President and CEO Bruce Goslee. “A poster with messages from members calling in to say thank you or posting kind messages on our Facebook page was made for the guys to see as they came in from the field. I am really proud of our employees, they worked hard to get the lights back on and everyone stayed safe.”

NIPSCO said it could be Friday or even Saturday until all power is restored to its customers. NIPSCO crews are also working in the hard-hit northwest counties of Indiana.

On Sunday morning, the Warsaw-Wayne Fire Territory sounded the tornado warning in what was supposed to be a partial test. Fire chief Mike Brubaker explained that the siren, which was recently relocated from the old city hall building to Warsaw Fire Station 1, had not been fully functional until last last week, but he had some personal matters to tend to and was not able to get to the testing sooner.

Brubaker apologized for the poor timing, but noted the warning system did function and was actually needed and used later Sunday afternoon.