Gibraltar Cleaning Up after Thursday's Storm

GIBRALTAR, Mich. - Labor Day weekend will be a working weekend for many people in Gibraltar.  They will be cleaning up for days and making repairs after Thursday's storms.

It's like a parade of broken pieces through the backyard of a pastor's home.  His garage lost its roof after the powerful September storm brought winds up to 75 miles-per-hour and heavy rain.

Friday, a crew from Statewide Disaster Restoration came to clean up the mess.  We're told the pastor is out of town and no one was hurt.

"I was told that he said, 'I didn't like that garage door anyhow.  We needed a new one,'" said Rex Livingston.  "So, he's taking it with a grain of salt."

We met Livington as he was repairing his back fence.  The winds were strong enough to rip a brick chimney apart, crumple an aluminium shed and bring down all kinds of tree limbs and power lines.

Down the street, there's another garage that could not withstand the force of Mother Nature.  The entire structure collapsed, but incredibly there was only minor damage to a van.

"My neighbor... said he thought a tornado came down," said Tom Miles.  "It just never hit the ground, just came close."

"It just started pouring down rain," said Sydney Miles.  "It looked like a hurricane was hitting our house."

Sydney was home alone when the frightening storm struck.  She and her brother helped clean up their yard, and all around they saw the community coming together.

"We've had great help from the neighbors, and they had chain saws and came around front and took care of all the limbs that had blown off," said one woman.

Brownstown Township, Rockwood and Riverview also took the brunt of the storm.  Crews spent the day working to restore power to a few thousand customers.  The National Weather Service now says straight line winds did all the damage.