The tornado appeared to be at least an F3 on the Fujita scale, which ranges from F0, the weakest, to F5, the strongest. An F3 has winds ranging from 158 mph to 206 mph, and the tornado that hit on Sunday may have been even stronger, Presley said.
Tim Martin, 42, was inside his parents' mobile home at Eastbrook when they heard the wind, and then the tornado picked up the home and shoved it into a neighbor's yard.
Martin and his parents escaped unharmed, but they heard several neighbors calling for help.
"All I could see was debris," he said. "I thought it was a bad dream."
A nearby mobile home was overturned, and another had been obliterated.
Patty Ellerbusch, 53, said she and her husband were in bed at their hilltop home in Newburgh when a relative called and warned them of the tornado.
They ran for the basement, but her husband didn't make it before the tornado hit. He was blasted with shattered drywall, wood and other debris as the tornado shredded the home's roof, she said.
"He was running down the hallway, and it knocked him down and ripped his glasses off. He said it felt like being in a wind tunnel," she said.
About 100 of the 350 mobile homes at Eastbrook were destroyed, and 125 others were damaged, Indiana homeland security spokeswoman Pam Bright said.
Bright said it was the deadliest tornado in Indiana since April 3, 1974, when an outbreak of several tornadoes killed 47 people and destroyed 2,069 homes.
Tornadoes can occur anytime of year, but peak tornado season in the United States lasts from March through the summer months, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The Ellis Park racetrack, between Evansville and Henderson, Ky., had significant damage to barns, the grandstand and other buildings, and some workers were injured, said Paul Kuerzi, the track's vice president and general manager.
Kuerzi said three horses died from injuries suffered in storm. He said it was too early to know if any other horses were injured. About 150 horses in training were stabled there.
Another tornado hit downtown Munfordville, in south-central Kentucky, a few hours later, destroying at least 25 homes and damaged dozens of others, as well as businesses. "It was frankly a miracle that no one was killed," Kentucky Gov. Ernie Fletcher said.
