COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — On the evening of May 31, 1985, a series of large and deadly tornadoes swept across northeastern and central Ohio, leaving wide paths of destruction.

Victoria Piasecka, a Hilliard resident, was a high school student in Howland Township, Ohio, a little south of Warren, in May 1985. School had let out for the summer on that unseasonably warm, sunny afternoon. She and her friends were playing video games at her aunt’s home when they heard an unfamiliar sound. Heading outside, a large tornado resembling a column of fire descended from a relatively bright sky without warning.

“It wasn’t dark at the time,” said Piasecka. “It was huge, and roofs going up, and just seeing stuff going up in the air, and we all ran inside after that.” She added that the scene moments afterwards was “just devastating.”

The tornado first touched down in Portage County, just east of the Ravenna Arsenal, around 6:30 p.m., barreling toward Newton Falls, about 15 miles west of Niles. The storm’s trajectory and impact were recalled in Thunder in the Heartland, a book by Thomas and Jeanne Schmidlin.

A captain with the city’s safety police reserve, Clayton Reakes, a trained storm spotter, climbed to the roof of the Municipal Building. An hour later, he and a fellow lieutenant spotted the large funnel and alerted officials by walkie-talkie to sound the town’s tornado siren with only minutes to spare, likely saving lives.

The F3/F4 tornado intensified, plowing through the northern part of Niles while traveling at 50 mph, tearing apart homes and businesses, including a popular roller rink that would have been occupied with youngsters only a short time later in the evening. The heaviest damage was concentrated along U.S. 422 and Niles Park Plaza.

Hundreds of homes were destroyed and eight people died near the Niles business district. The monster tornado continued east, weakening slightly as it passed north of Youngstown, before killing two persons in Hubbard Township. The violent F5 tornado, with winds reaching 300 mph, blasted across Mercer County, Pennsylvania, killing seven more in Wheatland. In all, 18 lives were lost and 310 people were injured along the storm’s path.

Around the same time, a tornado touched down northwest of Johnstown and passed north of the Croton egg farm, traveling 29 miles before ending in the hills of southwestern Coshocton County. One person died just across the county line and 25 were injured. A number of homes and barns were heavily damaged, and trees were toppled along the path of the storm across rural northern Licking County.

The massive tornado outbreak began in the mid-afternoon in southeastern Ontario, Canada, where 12 people died, and continued southeast across northeastern and central Ohio (11 direct deaths) to western and central Pennsylvania (65 deaths) during a six-hour assault. Storm damages at the time were estimated in excess of $600 million, and injuries were at least 875, and probably exceeded 1,000.

A total of 44 individual tornadoes were confirmed in the historic outbreak on May 31 and June 1, 1985: 14 in Ontario, Canada, 12 in Ohio, 21 in Pennsylvania (including four that started in Ohio), and three in New York (including one that first touched down in northwestern Pennsylvania).