Tornado touches down, runs through Pulaski

Pulaski residents were in for a frightening afternoon on Aug. 11.

After clouds and rain had appeared in the area, a funnel cloud formed without warning and came through the village.

Abrams resident Orville Bonk said that he was in the area driving when he knew that this storm was different than a normal one.

“I noticed it when I was going up to Angelica,” said Bonk. “It was just black — all the way on state Highway 160 the sky was black.”

Bonk said that when he turned towards Seymour, the wind was strong enough to move his car off of the road for a minute.

Though the tornado, which the National Weather Service has yet to categorize, went through Pulaski, only a couple streets and blocks were the recipients of bad tree damage.

“Most of the damage occurred on Chicago Street,” said Pulaski Police Chief Mark Hendzel.

At 2:10 p.m. a tornado formed at the north end of Main Street, according to Hendzel.

“I notified Brown County dispatch of my sighting,” said Hendzel. “Within a couple of minutes the funnel cloud was upon us.”

He added that although there was another storm in Angelica, this funnel cloud formed without warning.

Hendzel heard that there were storms in the area and in typical fashion he and another officer went out to patrol the area. That’s when he noticed it may be something more than just rain.

“We didn’t know that this was going to be something different than a normal storm,” said Hendzel. “This storm just formed within minutes. There was not a lot of advanced notification.”

Pulaski Police Officer Kyle Betzner was also out patrolling and found himself near the tornado.

“It was very eerie,” said Betzner. “I was responding to a car that the wind had pushed into a ditch, luckily there was no one in the car.”

Hendzel said that there was ample time to get the sirens going to notify residents of the village.

Joel Van Lannen, director of public works and utilities in Pulaski, heard the tornado sirens and was able to prepare for it, as well as prepare to start cleaning the area.

With most of the damage coming from tree branches and power lines, employees of the Pulaski Public Works and Utilities, along with residents continued to clean the area of the storm through lunch time on Aug. 12.

“We are almost done cleaning the area,” said Hendzel. “We did not have a lot of structural damage so there was not a real high dollar amount in damage. It was not high enough to declare an emergency.”

With the branches and power lines coming during the storm, Hendzel noticed something out of the ordinary flying in the sky.

“I saw a trampoline well in the air, maybe 30, 40 or 50 feet up,” said Hendzel.

He added that there were no reported deaths or even injuries from the storm.

Van Lannen, said that the tornado that came through did not cause as much damage as one that the village experienced previously.

“We did find quite a few trees down on Chicago Street, Pulaski Street and Main Street,” said Van Lannen.

He said that with some of the trees and powerlines that came down, some residents houses were affected.

“There were some homes that had electrical service problems and some porches got damaged,” said Van Lannen. “I haven’t heard of anything real severe though.”

Pulaski resident Francis Karchinski said that he was standing in his garage watching as the storm went by.

“I was just standing in the garage looking at the sky and all of a sudden the tornado sirens went off,” said Karchinski. “Then a huge tree branch landed right in my driveway.”

Bonk and Karchinski were working together to remove some of the debris from Karchinski’s yard where branches from the neighbors blew into the yard and on to Karchinski’s house.

“There was a little bit of damage on the corner of my roof,” said Karchinski. “They pulled out a lot big trees and branches from the yard.”

Employees of the Pulaski Public Works and Utilities continued cleaning the streets and parks of debris on Aug. 12.

lreimer@newmedia-wi.com