Twisters leave path of destruction in Michigan

(CBS News) Searchers were going door-to-door in southeast Michigan Friday after tornadoes ripped through.

There were no initial reports of serious injuries.

The small town of Dexter was hardest hit. Thirteen homes were destroyed and more than 100 damaged.

As Maria Hechanova of CBS affiliate WLNS-TV in Lansing, Mich. reports, 13 homes were destroyed in Dexter.

"Initially," said Dexter resident Brittany Keller, "it's just kind of the shock value. I think when people say, you know, 'Oh my God, my house is destroyed,' that's just your initial concept of how bad it really was."

Dexter residents were assessing the damage Friday. One said, "I thought it only hit on (one) side of the house, from what I was listening to, until I walked out and saw the garage was missing."

Bob Bricault hid inside his home as he watched the tornado head straight toward him. "I realized," he said, "it was coming faster than I thought. So I went down in the basement and got down there, and I could just hear it getting louder and louder. And all of a sudden, everything just started exploding, the doors, and I could see the neighbors' houses were falling apart."

The slow-moving, large funnel cloud of wind, hail, and rain touched the ground in Dexter for 30 minutes, tracking 10 miles of devastation.

"You don't even have enough time to pray or kiss yourself goodbye," one resident said. "I mean, you just sit there and wait and just hope you're going to be there at the end."

Minutes later, a second funnel cloud was spotted southeast, in the town of Ida, where the storm tore through a home as lightning strobed the skies.

Thursday, a 77 degree high tied the record for the warmest Ides of March in Southeast Michigan history. When a Canadian cold front blew in, the weather system was ripe for the violent weather that turned lives upside-down.

Derrick Jackson of the Washtenaw County Sheriff's Office said, "It's devastating. Mother Nature can be devastating. There's nothing, really, that can be said to that, to lose your home or have it significantly damaged."

To see Maria Hechanova's report, click on the video in the player above.