Destruction reported across state

WASHINGTON, Ind. -- Jhona King gasped when she saw her storm-damaged house for the first time Monday, its roof dotted with holes and debris scattered on the ground alongside her property.\n"Lord, it's crazy," the 27-year-old Washington resident said. "I guess I'll repair the roof and keep on going. I'm glad it didn't take my whole house down."\nResidents throughout much of central and southern Indiana spent Monday assessing the damage from a powerful line of storms that was being blamed for as many as 27 deaths elsewhere in the Midwest.\nEmergency officials said a series of suspected tornadoes might have touched down as many as eight times Sunday in Indiana. Almost 500 homes and businesses were damaged or destroyed by the storms, said Andy Zirkle, a spokesman for the Indiana Department of Homeland Security. At least five counties declared local disasters.\nThe National Weather Service was studying damage in Knox, Daviess, Martin, Jackson and Jennings counties to determine whether tornadoes were to blame for the destruction there.\n"With as widespread and extensive as it is, it's very hard to know where to start," weather service meteorologist Logan Johnson said. "It could take several days before we know the full extent of what happened."\nThe Indiana Department of Homeland Security said the storms destroyed 19 homes and damaged more than 400 others statewide. Fifty businesses also were damaged.\nIn Washington, where seven homes were destroyed and more than 100 were damaged, officials predicted a tedious cleanup.\n"These are people who are struggling," said Paul Goss, director of Daviess County's Emergency Management Agency. "Everything they had will probably be lost. This will be a long, slow recovery."\nRescuers in Washington pulled residents out of mobile homes that overturned in winds that gusted to more than 80 mph.\nIn downtown Indianapolis, where tornado-force winds shattered dozens of windows in the Regions Bank building, streets remained closed Monday and rush-hour traffic slowed to a crawl.\n"After a night of very severe and dangerous weather here in Indianapolis, we have an awful lot to be thankful for," Mayor Bart Peterson said.\nThe storm hit the area just after thousands of people had left a free John Mellencamp rock concert on Monument Circle that was held as part of the NCAA men's Final Four basketball tournament.\nMike Chartran, a weather service spokesman, said a preliminary report found strong winds -- not a tornado -- caused the damage in Indianapolis.\n"It looks like winds were significant enough to be of that caliber of a small tornado," he said.\nA tornado that spawned from a separate storm system damaged or destroyed about 40 homes southeast of Indianapolis on Friday.\nNo severe injuries were reported in either night of storms.\nTodd Maurer, the co-owner of the Regions building, said workers were trying to clean up offices on the northwest and southwest corners of the tower. The building remained structurally sound.\n"We are working on closing those areas off so we can get those tenants back in the building as quickly as possible," he said.\nElsewhere in Indiana, the storms leveled buildings, flipped cars and mobile homes and plunged thousands of residents into darkness.\nAbout 121,000 Duke Energy customers lost power during the storms and 13,000 were still without service Monday evening, said company spokeswoman Angeline Protogere. Most of those without power were in Bloomington, Bedford, Princeton and Vincennes.\nProtogere said some residents might not have their power restored until Tuesday evening.\nAbout 75 miles southwest of Indianapolis, winds blew a pontoon boat about 500 feet into a Mitchell, Ind., cemetery, where it damaged a dozen headstones, said Bill Sallee, chief dispatcher for the Mitchell police.\n"The boat was sitting in storage and it ended up in the middle of the cemetery," he said.\nCars and mobile homes in the J&L Trailer Park in Elizabethtown, about 50 miles southeast of Indianapolis, were toppled when a suspected tornado touched down there, said Sandra Turner, a dispatcher for the Jennings County Sheriff's Department.\nJanet Watson, 60, drove to her RV in the West Boggs Park outside Loogootee on Monday from her farmhouse in Sumner, Ill. She arrived to find the roof of her weekend retreat sagging into the living room and tree limbs poking through the walls of her bedroom.\n"I'm sure it'll all hit me later," she said. "I wouldn't want to take my blood pressure right now, that's for sure."\nAssociated Press Writer Ashley M. Heher in Indianapolis contributed to this story.