GEAUGA COUNTY — A tornado damaged a barn in Middlefield on Tuesday night, leaving horses injured as severe weather passed through the area.
Casey Pierce, one of the barn's owners, was shocked when she looked out of her window and saw the majority of her barn out on the highway.
“I thought to myself, wow, our barn is on (State Route) 528— that’s probably not a good thing,” said Pierce.
An EF-0 tornado moving 85mph touched down in the area, damaged buildings, including Pierce's barn, and injured her horses.
RELATED: National Weather Service confirms EF-0 tornado touched down in Middlefield
“I had a terrible feeling after seeing all of the wreckage, I thought that there couldn't not be at least a few horses that were hurt,” said Pierce.
When they walked to the back of the farm, they noticed pieces of debris from the barn had hit some of the horses, breaking one of their legs.
“We had to put one of the horses to sleep. She was also pregnant. Two baby horses were also injured and had lacerations all along their backsides down to their legs,” said Pierce.
At Casey’s training center, they spend time breeding and training these horses.
“What's hard is they're part of my family, but they're also part of my customers family, because we just do the boarding and training. So many of the horses here I don't own, they are sent here to further their education and one of the horses that was injured was here to be in school,” said Pierce.
Pierce said what hurts the most is that there was nothing they could have done to prevent the damage.
“There was no warning, when the wind picked up, I was looking at my phone to see if there was a warning or something," said Pierce.
News 5 meteorologist Katie McGraw has spent years tracking tornadoes in Northeast Ohio.
“EF zeros are the most common tornadoes that we see, not only in Ohio, but across the United States,” said McGraw.
But there were no tornado warnings from the National Weather Service for the last two that hit the area.
“This particular storm did have a severe thunderstorm warning on it, but bottom line it's so brief that sometimes we can actually miss it in radar scans,” said McGraw.
Two of the horses, 9-year-old Hope and 4-year-old Josie, are being treated for joint infections at Equine Specialty Hospital in Burton, Ohio.
"They believe they're going to make a full recovery, but the joint infection is very dangerous and can be fatal," Pierce said
To help support the horse’s recovery, a GoFundMe has been set up for donations.
