KOKOMO, Ind. -- Cleanup efforts are underway after several tornadoes hit Indiana Wednesday.
Eight tornadoes touched down across the area in the worst August outbreak since 1969. The National Weather Service says the EF3 tornado that struck Kokomo had winds of up to 136 miles per hour.
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Local meteorologists were looking into the spontaneous outbreak and where it came from. Kevin Gregory, chief meteorologist at WCPO's Indianapolis sister station, RTV6, was on the air for seven hours straight tracking the tornado outbreak in central Indiana.
Gregory and other meteorologists said the storms came out of the blue. The humidity was off the charts and there was plenty of warm air, but no overwhelming trigger.
"The dynamics of the atmosphere can get this storm spinning, and then you're talking about two or three different storms that produced this path from Indiana all the way into Ohio," Gregory said.
You can see how wide the path of the Kokomo tornado was, as it flattened this cornfield @WCPO pic.twitter.com/4yYKGMoM7V
— Terry Helmer (@TerryHelmerWCPO) August 25, 2016
Many homes and businesses were damaged. People from across the area spent the day Thursday helping those affected by the storms.
Sherry Huff was with her granddaughter when the storm came through. They took cover between a wall and a love seat.
"I don't know if it's hit me yet or not because I haven't broke down yet," Huff said.
Terry Workman said a tornado hit just down the street from his house two years ago. This time, he wasn't so lucky and the storm did some damage to his home, but he was still thankful it wasn't worse.
"The lord was with us," Workman said. "Everything can be replaced but your life, so the lord was with us."
Twenty people were injured in the storms. Power was knocked out to more than 36,000 homes.
By Thursday afternoon, power had been restored at Community Howard Regional Health in Kokomo and at the drinking water plant, according to state officials. More traffic signals had also been restored and Duke Energy was still working to restore power.
Matthew 25: Ministries is sending a team to Kokomo Friday to help with the cleanup.
