Bourbon residents recall tornado as severe weather strikes again

MARSHALL COUNTY, Ind. -- One area bearing the brunt of Thursday’s weather is Marshall County, and they’re no stranger to severe weather. It was nearly a year ago an EF-1 tornado caused severe damage in the town of Bourbon. Earlier this month, high winds also caused damage.

In early April 2025, people in Bourbon looked out their windows and saw something they hadn't seen in years. A tornado, running rampant through parts of the town.

"There were some major storms coming in, we didn't really think anything, you never really do think you're going to get hit by a tornado, and then it got pretty bad that night, our road got hit the hardest by the tornadoes,” said Chet Irvine, Bourbon resident.

Nearly a year later, more severe weather.

"We're at the graces of god for the weather,” said Alan Robbins, Bourbon resident.

While it wasn't a tornado this time, the winds were strong enough to cause significant damage for Alan Robbins.

"I ended up finding out that we had several shutters that got blown off our house, we had problems with that several months ago when we had the other storm, so I started taking them down because I had no way to keep them up, especially with 60 to 80 mile per hour winds around here, so it actually blew off two of our shutters,” said Robbins.

Chet Irvine says he got lucky that day last April, since two of his nearby neighbors lost their homes entirely. He's thankful his son was able to get home safe.

“I was standing at the front door watching, on the phone with my son, talking him through the storm and making sure he could get here safe but he could not get here safe because of the damage on the main road coming in with debris in the road, so he had to go to the neighbor's house before he got home but I was on the phone and I watched the storm come in and take the roofs off the houses,” said Irvine.

After such a close call, Irvine says now when he sees severe weather warnings, he thinks a little differently.

“I think a lot of people in northern Indiana are storm watchers, I’m a storm watcher, I love sitting on the porch and watching a good storm roll in, but it's always in the back of your mind, a year ago it got pretty hectic so you pray it doesn't happen again, and it's just a regular old thunderstorm,” said Irvine.