Clean Up Begins, Shock and Damage Remains after Dexter Tornado

Many Dexter residents are devastated after a tornado ripped through the town Thursday evening.

Sandy Pollard drove through the pouring rain with her head out the window so she could see to get home to her 17-year-old daughter, reported the Detroit Free Press. When she finally got there and her daughter came running up the stairs to greet her, a piece of drywall broke through the living room window, causing them both to scream, the article stated.

Kate Boynton huddled in the basement with her daughters, 7 and 4, and eight-month-old son as the storm passed, reported to the Detroit News.

"I feel so lucky to be alive," she said in the article. "I could tell that the house was being ripped apart so we just prayed that we weren't going to lose the basement."

The first officer on the scene Thursday, Washtenaw County Sheriff's Deputy Ray Yee, reached for the hand and pulled out an elderly man who was shaken but able to walk, according to the Associated Press.

"That's the best part," Yee said in the article. "Every place I went to, I would have thought I would have found somebody laying there — deceased or whatever. But, knock on wood, everybody was OK."

Dexter Patch reported more than 100 homes were significantly damaged Thursday after a tornado struck down in this Southeast Michigan community. Thirteen homes were totally destroyed. The worst hit areas, , were the Carriage Hills and Huron Farms neighborhoods of Dexter.

Clean up has begun in the area, but the shock remains.

""It's like a war zone in here this morning," said Erin Kennedy in a AnnArbor.com article.

Kennedy had the roof of her home partially blown off and were waiting for their insurance representative to show up Friday, the story stated.

National Weather Service meteorologist Steven Freitag said the tornado was on the ground for about a half hour and had a path about 10 miles long, in a CBS Detroit TV 62 article.

The storm is grabbing national headlines including USA Today and Washington Post.