FELICITY - Homes were damaged and at least 15 mobile homes ripped apart in this Clermont County town Wednesday night in what National Weather Service officials called a major tornado touchdown.
Initial reports told of sheds blown about, some tossed over vehicles, according to the weather service office in Wilmington, Ohio.
Most of the damage occurred to the Country View Trailer Park, where about 75 percent of the 40 mobile homes there suffered some type of damage, said Mark Baird, assistant fire chief for the Felicity-Franklin Fire Department.
Shane Rutledge, 17, said he was standing outside his family's trailer in rain when a friend came running toward him, shouting: "Get out of here! Get out of here!"
Shane looked up.
"It was heading right towards us," he said.
Shane, a friend, a sister and three nieces and nephews, ages 2, 3 and 6, ran to a car and tried to outrun the tornado.
When they realized they could not, they stopped the car, he said, and made a dash to a house along the road. A woman came to the door and all six fled to the basement of the home, where they stayed for 30 minutes.
"You could hear it coming. It sounded like a freight train," Shane said.
About 15 mobile homes in the park were destroyed, Mr. Baird said. About 20 to 30 homes were damaged on Bolender Road and Ohio 756, he said. There was one reported injury, which is thought to be minor to moderate, he said.
The damage came as storms blew through the Tristate on Wednesday evening, producing heavy rain, hail and high winds that also downed trees and knocked out power to thousands of homes in Greater Cincinnati.
Shane said he saw two tornadoes, and they caught his family off-guard. "There were no sirens until after the first tornado had already been sighted," he said.
Jim Lott, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Wilmington, said a tornado formed over Moscow, in the southwestern corner of the county, and moved eastward causing severe damage in Felicity.
Although the tornado formed over Moscow, the neighboring community went untouched, Chief Dennis Skeene said.
The American Red Cross Disaster Services Unit opened a shelter at the Felicity-Franklin school's old gymnasium to care for those left homeless, said Barbara Giles, a spokeswoman for the Red Cross. Persons seeking residents left homeless can call the Red Cross at 579-3000.
Ms. Giles said she did not know how many people were in need of shelter. School buses were used to take residents to the shelter, she said.
The Red Cross is helping with food, emergency clothing and immediate medical needs, cots and places to sleep, she said.
Felicity, a village in rural southeastern Clermont County, is surrounded by Franklin Township. It had a population of about 1,330 and some 473 households in 1994.
Tornado warnings had been issued for Clermont, Butler, Warren, Greene, Montgomery, Preble and Franklin counties in Ohio, as well as Kenton and Campbell counties in Northern Kentucky.
Lightning strikes to homes were reported throughout the area. In Cincinnati, residents were pounded by hail so big that the ice balls set off some car theft alarms.
"It was raining pretty hard, and we had hail probably the size of golf balls, but not quite as big as baseballs," said Covedale resident Julie Wolff. The hail storm lasted 15 to 20 minutes, she said.
Downtown Cincinnati was pelted with pea- to marble-sized hail. The severe weather forced Cincinnati City Council to interrupt a marathon meeting in the third-floor council chambers at City Hall and move the meeting to a small basement lunchroom.
Shortly after the severe weather sirens began sounding and hail began pounding on the stained-glass windows of council chambers, Mayor Roxanne Qualls halted the meeting and asked council members, staff and members of the public to move downstairs.
Funnel clouds were reported in Park Hills, Fort Wright and Crescent Springs in Northern Kentucky and west of downtown Cincinnati, but there was no confirmation that any touched ground.
Between 4,500 and 5,000 Cinergy customers were without service Wednesday evening, said Steve Brash, Cinergy spokesman. About a third of those homes without power were in Middletown, Mr. Brash said. Covington had the second-largest number of Cinergy customers without power.
"Basically it was fairly widespread neighborhood outages," Mr. Brash said, adding that 25 to 30 crews worked throughout the night to restore power. In Dayton, Ohio, high winds uprooted trees and knocked out traffic lights. Power outages also were reported.
Christine Wolff, Howard Wilkinson, Marijke Rowland and Joe Jones contributed to this report.
