TOLEDO, Ohio — Point Place residents were going about their usual business Thursday evening when seemingly out of nowhere, severe weather brought hail and a tornado to the area.
"All of a sudden, the phone disconnects and I look out the window and the sky is blue-green and there's debris flying through the air horizontally " Tod Schalle, a Point Place resident, said.
It struck suddenly, and with a violence no one could have prepared for.
"It was just unbelievable, the noise that it was making, the trees, there were bricks hitting the home, it was insane," Jamie Rudski, another Point Place resident who lives just up the street from Schalle, said.
Her Husband, Ron Rudski, recalled the storm getting worse and worse to the point the protection of their house came into question.
"Branches hit the top of the roof multiple times," Ron said. "And next thing we knew, [a branch] shot through the roof and across the kitchen floor. That was quite the ordeal."
After surviving the most dangerous portion of the storms, people cautiously left their homes to take stock of the destruction and begin the cleanup.
For the Rudskis, the damage came with a hefty price.
"The damage is severe," Jamie said. "We actually had a small tree company come out and let us know we have about $50,000 of tree work."
Schalle said the storms "devastated" his truck.
If the damage is severe enough, some may be eligible for a tax adjustment from the Lucas County auditors who were seen Friday traveling around speaking to those that took a beating from the storms.
"It has to be major damage," Ryan Reiter, a Lucas County auditor, said. "If you have some busted windows that you're going to get fixed in the next week or two, that's not going to affect your value."
But fallen trees, crushed cars and ripped siding don't fall into that category. Between calls to their insurance, people in affected neighborhoods are holding on tightly to what they have left.
"[I] just hope everyone is safe ... we'll all get through this. We're a good community," Jamie Rudski said.