BRIDGETOWN, Ohio — The west side of Cincinnati was hammered by a line of storms Tuesday afternoon leaving thousands without power and many with property damage.
Race Road was left impassible south of Boomer Road and homes lining adjacent streets were damaged by falling trees and limbs.
We met Samantha Kessen as she stood outside of her home on Race Road staring at a web of power lines stretched over the street by fallen pine trees. She rode out the brief but violent storms in her basement after multiple tornado warnings lit up her family's phones and iPads.
"It was eerily silent," she said.
Kessen told us she never expected to emerge from the basement to see her neighborhood completely changed.
"I went outside and it looked like a bomb went off. The trees are on the ground. The power lines are on the ground. They're in the water. There's just debris everywhere," she said.
WATCH: WCPO visits Cincinnati's west side neighborhood surveying damage
On nearby Windridge Drive, families worked together to chop up massive fallen trees to clear the way for repair crews to reach the newly torn holes in roofs and siding.
We met Sherriff Goslin Roofing Project Manager Justin Janszen at the end of a driveway. A couple dozen feet away a huge tree had carved it's way through a homeowner's roof on the way to smashing her Toyota Camry into a heap of twisted metal.
"It came through like a wall," Janszen said. "It came ripping right through real fast, started swirling, spinning, it started going everywhere, and that's when the phones started ringing."
Janszen called this neighborhood some of the worst damage he'd seen from a storm in the last decade working in roofing.
He had advice for anyone now looking for help.
"Find somebody with experience with insurance claims. You don't want to go at that alone," Janszen said.
