6/22/15 - Portland tornado response

Heavy thunderstorms were saturating the mid-Michigan area during the early afternoon of Monday, June 22, 2015. At approximately 2:30 PM, a tornado developed undetected approximately 2 1/2 miles northwest of Portland. Traveling southeast, the tornado took aim at the heart of the city. The twister arrived without notice, estimated by the National Weather Service to have been a high EF1, with winds up to 110 MPH, it tore apart historic churches, quiet neighborhoods and a commercial district. It stopped it's path of destruction at the entrance to a mobile home park, causing only minor damage to a few mobile homes. As multiple calls flooded into Ionia Central Dispatch, the Portland Fire Department was dispatched to the 1300 block of Grand River where several businesses had been hit. After confirming a complete building collapse of a Goodwill store with up to 4 people trapped inside, command requested the response of the Metro Lansing Tech Rescue Team. Additional mutual aid was requested for manpower from the Grand Ledge Fire Department, Lyon Twp Fire Department, and Ionia Dept of Public Safety. Command also requested ambulances from the Benton Twp, Delta Twp, and Lansing fire departments, as well as Eaton Area EMS to respond with Portland EMS to a staging area. A request was made for all available Michigan State Police units in the area to respond. Two staging areas were set up for responders, one at Grand River & Bridge St on the south side of the damage swath and one at the Portland Fire Station on the north side. A command post was set up and manpower was divided into teams, each team was assigned sectors in the city where every house or business was checked for possible rescue needs and hazard mitigation. Reports were quickly updated that no victims were still in the Goodwill store. The tech rescue teams performed primary searches of all the heavily damaged businesses, followed later by secondary searches for victims with MSP and MUSAR K9's. Residents, public works employees and private companies converged on the area to clear streets and houses of the hundreds of downed trees. Preliminary assessments calculated 109 homes, 19 businesses and 2 government buildings were damaged by the storm. Miraculously there were no serious injuries and no deaths as a result of this tornado.