Ohio teen describes being in upstairs bedroom when roof blew off house
Canaan Kuykendoll stood outside his family's Madison Township home trying to process what he went through just a few hours earlier. The 18-year-old was playing video games in his upstairs bedroom. He said a weather alert came across his phone.
By Karin Johnson
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MADISON TOWNSHIP, Ohio (WLWT) — Canaan Kuykendoll stood outside his family’s Madison Township home Monday evening trying to process what he went through just a few hours earlier.
The 18-year-old was playing video games in his upstairs bedroom. He said a weather alert came across his phone.
“I looked outside my window here to my right and saw like three trees get picked up in the air and tossed like they were weightless,” Kuykendoll said.
That wasn’t the worst of it.
“The roof disappeared,” he said. “After the roof went off like paper, I was like, ‘If it can do that to the roof, I think I’m going to get thrown.'”
Kuykendall said he grabbed onto a wall as rain poured down. Once the storm passed, he ran downstairs to safety.
“He made it out alive, not harmed, no scratches nothing,” said Nate Kuykendoll, Canaan’s father.
Their home on Elk Creek Road was heavily damaged.
“It literally looks like it went right through the middle of the house,” Nate Kuykendoll said.
Aside from the roof blowing off the house, walls were blown out, windows were shattered and screens were torn.
Almost all of the trees that surrounded the house ended up in piles falling on top of each other.
Emergency crews that were assessing the damage said about a handful of houses in Madison Township were damaged.
“It mostly came in on the western front of Butler County, northwest corner, and came across through Madison Township,” said Matt Haverkos, Director of the Butler County Emergency Management Agency.
On Dickey Road, a camper was tossed on its side crushing a pickup truck.
Another neighbor’s yard was littered with debris.
Denver Anders said he was at work when his family called him terrified.
“We were at work, and we came out of the shop and looked out in this direction, and we could see it come down like a finger, come down like that, and it would stop, and then it would go back up and come back down again,” Anders said.
Thankfully, his family was safe.
As for Canaan Kuykendoll, he said he has learned a lesson from this.
“I think I’m going to take the weather alerts a little more seriously now, pay attention to the details,” he said.
Officials with the Butler County EMA and Madison Township Fire Department said there were no injuries reported.
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