Kainan Hicks, a Cricket Wireless employee, recorded a sudden, violent storm that sent metal roofing, insulation, and other debris flying through a nearby shopping plaza.
Cell phone video near Three Rivers, showed dangerous weather conditions.
The tornado ripped through several buildings and tore the roof off a storage facility.
Hicks said on Friday (March 6) that the group had been getting haircuts at a few stores down the road when someone warned that a tornado was approaching.
He said they ran back to the Cricket Wireless store, and Hicks started a video just as debris began battering the plaza.
“I work at Cricket Wireless. We were a couple of stores down at the haircut place, trying to get a haircut. And the lady got a call and said a tornado was coming and that we needed to get in the back room,” said Hicks.
Hicks described locking the store door as the wind intensified and debris began striking windows and vehicles.
“So we decided to go back to our store, a couple of stores down. And that’s right when I’m getting inside, I started shutting the door from walking in, and that’s when I clicked the video on, and that’s when all the debris and everything started flying really hard,” Hicks said.
He said the debris included long pieces of metal roofing and material coming from nearby big-box stores.
“You hear me on the video yelling, ‘Lock the door.’ I could barely hold the door shut, the wind was so strong, but that was all debris coming from like the Meijers and Menards and just all sorts of things. Metal roofing that was, you know, 10-foot long, you know, there’s all sorts of crazy debris,” Hicks said.
Hicks estimated the tornadic damage cut through an intersection near those stores and was “about 150 yards” from the Cricket shop.
“That probably aims with by 200 yards, maybe 100 yards. It kind of cut through the intersection there, you can see the video from between the Meijers and the Dunhams and stuff, the kind of cut right through there, and we’re only like a hundred fifty yards from that,” Hicks said.
Hicks said the event felt “amusing” at first until debris began hitting the building and vehicles.
“It wasn’t scary at first, up until a few seconds in, when all the debris was actually flying, it started hitting the windows, and I was hearing it thump against the windows. And that’s when I heard one crack. I thought that was one of ours, but it was the T-Mobile next door. But that’s when it started getting scary,” Hicks said.
Hicks described the aftermath he captured on video: multiple six to seven-foot pieces of metal roofing, buckets, insulation, flipped dumpsters, and many damaged vehicles.
He also warned viewers not to get too close to such storms.
“If you see in the video, I do have aftermath videos; there are probably six, seven-foot-long pieces of metal roofing, probably approximately 15 of those pieces. There were a lot of buckets, insulation, styrofoam,” Hicks said. “It is not as scary watching it through a cell phone or a TV screen, but when it’s right there in your face, and you’re right in the middle of it, it is a lot scarier than you think. I would definitely want people to know that that is not a joke and that it is very dangerous. I was thinking it was all fun and games until it actually happened very close; it is no joke. It is a big deal, and I think people should not do what I did and videotape it as closely.”
Kainan Hicks
--> Video shows tornado rips roof off business in Southwest Michigan