The Brief
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Heavy storms and a tornado hit Metro Detroit, causing significant damage, particularly in Fraser and Macomb County.
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Homeowner Gaetano Rizzo experienced a tree falling on his house after a tornado alert; cleanup efforts have begun.
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DTE reports 600 local outages and 10,000 across Metro Detroit; National Weather Service confirmed Fraser tornado touchdown.
MACOMB COUNTY, Mich. (FOX 2) – Heavy storms and a tornado have caused damage throughout Metro Detroit, including Macomb County.
What they’re saying
The storms continued in Fraser, but the cleanup has begun from what the first line of storms, which included a tornado, left in its wake.
“We got the alert around 1:30 that there’s a tornado, and then the next moment we lived it,” said homeowner Gaetano Rizzo.
A tree falling on Rizzo’s home is not how he expected his Wednesday to turn out.
“My girlfriend and I took a weekend vacation up north, to the Charlevoix area. We came home and decided we wanted to nap after 5 hours of driving,” Rizzo said. “She woke me up and said, ‘Let’s go to the basement.’ I said, ‘Why?’ I looked outside, and the sky was going sideways.”
The National Weather Service confirmed a tornado touched down in Fraser around 1 p.m.
“And I saw down there that the playscape or whatever, the trampoline is wrapped around the pole,” said Brad Hopp with Premier Roofing and Renovations. “I was like, ‘Oh my god, I hope everybody’s okay.’”
Dig deeper
Meanwhile, people all across metro Detroit have been hunkering down for storms moving through now, just after taking a big hit earlier in the day.
When the first round of storms barreled on through Metro Detroit, trees started to fall. Like the one on St. Louis Street just off East Davison in Detroit.
Rosemary Mitchell found herself in shock.
“I was in the house getting ready to go to therapy and I heard a loud boom,” she said. “My whole house shook so I didn’t know what it was. I came out here, all this was out here.”
She was waiting on some friends to help clear some of the brush, while searching for a long term solution to repeated problems with the trees.
“These trees is old. I have replaced so many windows on my car. So many,” she said. “You know just got to pray and let God do his thing. Nothing you can do about it.”
Flight Delays
At Detroit Metro Airport, several travelers were stranded due to the severe weather causing delays.
Flight Aware says departure delays are an average of 1 hour 15 minutes. All inbound flights are held at their original airports until 10:45 p.m. Wednesday.
Power Outages
According to the DTE outage map, 600 in the area are without power, and 10,000 in Metro Detroit.
