Cleanup crews began assembling Friday at a northern Wisconsin resort to try to salvage any remnants of the business demolished by one of at least five tornadoes that swept across the state.

The tornadoes touched down mainly across central and northeast Wisconsin overnight Thursday.

The National Weather Service believes at least one tornado touched down for an extended period, ripping through parts of Langlade, Menominee and Oconto counties.

Some of the worst damage was at the 25-acre Bear Paw Outdoor Adventure Resort near White Lake in Langlade County. The northwoods resort runs along the Wolf River. Its 10 buildings included cabins, a restaurant and a store.

“Our restaurant’s totally gone. There’s maybe two walls standing,’’ said co-owner Shirlee Roshe. “Our entire retail shop was blown across the road. Most of the merchandise was between the highway and the field on the other side of the highway.’’

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At least one kayak was thrown more than 30 feet into the remnants of snapped pine trees.

“Most of our buildings are gone. I was just sickened,’’ Roshe said as she headed to the property to direct volunteers on cleanup efforts.

She said one employee on the property at the time the storm hit suffered minor cuts to the head.

Vern West, 71, said he lives about four miles from the resort and the storm sent him and his wife, Fran, scurrying into their basement.

“It was raining and blowing so hard. Oh yeah, it was scary,’’ he said.

A large tree branch fell on a neighbor’s home but his home was not damaged, West said.

In Oconto County, Tawny Booth, a bartender at the Halfway Bar near Mountain said everything went really dark outside before the storm hit.

“You could hear the wind coming really heavily,’’ Booth told WBAY-TV in Green Bay. “I went in the walk-in cooler and I hid there until I didn’t hear no more banging on the bar. I was there by myself and it was a very scary experience.’’

Some of the bar’s windows were broken and a home nearby had extensive damage.

In the town of Riverview, the roof and doors of the fire station were severely damaged.

“The door ripped off, I hopped in the truck, and that’s where I sat until everything was gone,’’ firefighter Chris Schultz told WBAY.

A tornado also sent two people to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries near Shadow Lake in Oconto County, said Wisconsin Emergency Management spokeswoman Lori Getter.

In Wisconsin Rapids, residents suffered extensive property damage from baseball-sized hail — about 4 inches across. It was strong enough to knock out the windshields of multiple cars, including a police cruiser, said dispatcher Karen Ryun.

Strong winds were also blamed for a small plane that flipped over at Milwaukee’s Timmerman Field, according to the FAA tower there.

There has been a precedent for severe weather this time of year in Wisconsin. On June 8, 1984, just after midnight an F5 tornado nearly wiped out Barneveld, killing nine and injuring nearly 200 while causing $25 million worth of damage along its 36-mile path.

“We’re very fortunate, it seems that most of this damage has been in very rural areas. We’re very fortunate no one has been killed,’’ Getter said. “I think everyone did the right thing. This was a powerful storm, and a lot of funnel clouds were reported, but either they didn’t touch down or they touched down very quickly and went right back up.’’

information from : www.chippewa.com

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