Lake Lansing Park South is closed until further notice after Thursday’s storms knocked down large trees and crushed part of the park’s main shelter.
Photos posted Friday by Ingham County Parks show uprooted trees, broken limbs covering parts of the grounds and damage to the shelter.
County officials said the damaged portion of the shelter cannot be used for the rest of the season. People are being asked to stay away while crews work to clear the park and assess the damage.
All other Ingham County parks are open, including Lake Lansing Park North.
The damage at Lake Lansing Park South was part of a larger stretch of destruction across eastern Ingham County. Trees were reported down around East Lansing, Okemos, Haslett and Williamston.
The National Weather Service issued a tornado warning Thursday afternoon for northeastern Ingham County after radar detected rotation near Webberville and Bell Oak. A separate warning covered parts of Livingston County.
As of late Friday morning, the Weather Service had not confirmed a tornado in Mid-Michigan.
Official storm reports included numerous trees down around Haslett and Lake Lansing. Near Williamston, the Weather Service received a report of roof damage and the collapse of a concrete wall at a building along East Grand River Avenue.
Ingham County Deputy Emergency Manager Rob Dale told WILX that crews would examine damage patterns and the age and construction of damaged buildings to help estimate wind speeds.
“We’ll take some of the damage patterns and get a quick idea of what the winds were in this particular spot,” Dale said. “It really depends on how it was built, how old it was, so those are things we’ll analyze.”
Additional findings will be posted by the National Weather Service in Grand Rapids.
