By Tom O'Neill
The Cincinnati Enquirer

VAN WERT, Ohio - There was little time for actual fear, even with the warning sirens that split this quiet, flat farmland.

Theater manager Scott Shaffer stands in front of the demolished cinemas Monday in Van Wert, Ohio. Shaffer led theater-goers to shelter moments before the tornado hit. (AP Photo/Al Behrman) | ZOOM |

The tornado that tore through the northwest edge of Ohio on Sunday afternoon did so at more than 200 mph, leaving in its path five dead, dozens injured - and an extraordinary lesson in preparedness at a theater that on Monday became a ground zero of sorts.

The five deaths in the region, emergency and government officials said, could have been dozens had it not been for the quick thinking of Scott Shaffer, manager of Van Wert Cinemas.

Ten-year-old Mitch Stauffer was in Row 2 of the front theater, watching the closing credits to The Santa Clause 2.

He heard the manager say something about a tornado alert.

Fifteen minutes later, there was an upside-down Chevy Cavalier in the row in which Mitch had been sitting.

The screen and walls were gone.

Haylie Walker, 9, and Mitch Stauffer, 10, were sitting together in the second row. The tornado blew a car onto their row. (AP Photo/Al Behrman) | ZOOM |

The screaming from the 60 people - mostly children - huddled in interior restrooms and hallways did not die down when the 200-plus mile-per-hour winds did.

"We were just blessed," Mitch said Monday, as Ohio Lt. Governor Maureen O'Connor pledged state assistance in the theater parking lot.

Ohio Gov. Bob Taft declared a state of emergency in Van Wert and Ottawa counties, about 160 miles north of Cincinnati. Local officials this week will pursue both state and federal aid.

"Quick action saved many, many lives in this county," Ms. O'Connor said, the royal-blue theater seats behind her exposed to the gray sky, still strewn with metal debris, yellow insulation from nearby homes and the blue Chevy that belonged to an employee.

In Van Wert County, two people were killed and 19 injured, 22 houses were destroyed and 12 had major damage, and six businesses were destroyed.

Friend and family of the theater owners help salvage equipment. (Steven M. Herppich photo) | ZOOM |

Much of the credit for lives saved went to Mr. Shaffer, who promptly herded patrons between the cinder-block walls of the building lobby and restrooms. The cinema was equipped with a weather-alert radio, which went off moments before the county's 14 sirens did.

"It happened so quick," he said. "Afterward, that's when fear set in."

He hustled dozens of children into the restrooms, knowing they had the strongest walls. There were 130 people at the matinee. Some, like Mitch, had left for home moments before the tornado hit, but many remained - awaiting their rides.

"It started shaking and rattling," Mr. Shaffer recalled, "and got ear-piercing for a few seconds."

He received several stitches to his left arm at Van Wert Hospital, an injury he didn't notice at first. Only one other minor injury was reported at the theater.

A backhoe cleans up debris from the theater. (Steven M. Herppich photo) | ZOOM |

Paul Roddy, 27, of nearby Paulding was watching 8 Milewith his wife. He covered her on the floor and held on.

"Kids were screaming," he said Monday. Were it not for the manager and good luck, he said, "we'd probably be dead."

Two doors down on West Main Street, Donna Holman was awakened by a siren. Owing to instinct, she drove directly to the Ohio State Highway Patrol post in Van Wert, where she is a dispatcher.

Her home, she said, was destroyed.

The crushed shell of a neighbor's red compact car was in her front yard, amid broken and uprooted trees. She and her husband, Douglas, had just moved to their home Sept. 13.

"It just makes you sick," she said, surveying the damage. "But, thank God."

The theater owners, Jim and Joyce Boyd, also suffered severe damage to their home. Friends helped Joyce Boyd (in red) salvage their belongings. (Steven M. Herppich photo) | ZOOM |

Rick McCoy, director of the Van Wert County Emergency Management Agency, thanks the level of preparation that made Van Wert one of only four Ohio counties designated as "storm ready" under federal guidelines, he said.

"We have a number of vehicles here we're not sure where they came from," he said.

Unlike in Hamilton County, where some battery-operated sirens failed in the 1999 tornado that killed four, each of the county's sirens worked. Eleven of Van Wert's 14 sirens are dependent on electricity.

When it goes, the sirens fall silent. That didn't occur here Sunday.

Van Wert County five years ago replaced three sirens with battery-backup units, funded by county money and a matching grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. They cost about $15,000 each, Mr. McCoy said.

Still, the five deaths made this the area's most deadly tornado since Palm Sunday 1965.

Denver and Cretie Branham were killed in their mobile home in nearby Continental, Putnam County; Nicholas Mollenkopt, 18, of Van Wert was killed when the tornado blew him out of his car; Alfred Germann, 75, of Van Wert, died in his home; and a fifth person died in Republic, Seneca County.

Cleanup will take weeks.

Glenn Troth, meanwhile, was hit both professionally and personally.

He was acquainted with the elderly Mr. Branham, who was well known for selling eggs out of his home.

"He waves at you before you realize he's there," Mr. Troth said of driving past the Branham home. "Then you wave in your rear-view mirror and you feel guilty if he doesn't see you."

Mr. Troth also is on the board of trustees at family owned Braun, which manufacturers equipment for ambulances.

"It pays to go to church," he said outside Braun in the Vision Industrial Park, site of some of the worst damage and home to about 300 jobs.

Across an open field littered with twisted metal, debris and printed work orders that skidded in the wind, motorists stopped along Ohio 30 and took photos.

Mr. Troth said the positions of the firm's 94 employees should not be affected, despite a third of the company's roof being scattered amid the ruins of Teem Wholesale distributorship across the street, which was leveled.

The Teem office is gone, the time clock stuck on 3:29. The three 18-wheelers at Teem were on their sides, smashed.

Braun, like area schools, will remain closed for at least a few more days.

Nearby, telephone poles were snapped like twigs.

On Monday, Veterans Day, Braun's American flag flapped atop its pole, ripped horizontally but for a 2-inch piece near the stars that held it together.

E-mail toneill@enquirer.com