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Strong Storms Flip Car on I-71 in Columbus, Traffic Video Shows

The National Weather Service will inspect video and damage to decide whether the winds were a tornado or straight-line gusts.

Overview

  • Traffic-camera footage shows a powerful gust lifting a car across lanes and flipping it into the center median on I-71 at Weber Road, in video recorded Tuesday morning.
  • Ohio Department of Transportation press secretary Matt Bruning posted the camera video publicly, making the incident widely visible to officials and the public.
  • John Glenn Columbus International Airport logged an 82 mph wind gust minutes after the footage, and officials have not yet reported whether anyone in the vehicle was injured.
  • The National Weather Service will carry out field damage surveys that look for damage patterns to determine if a tornado or straight-line winds caused the vehicle displacement.
  • The event is part of a larger multi-day wind-damage outbreak that produced nearly 500 reports the previous day and has raised travel and safety concerns across the eastern Great Lakes and Mid-Atlantic.