[2] After moving east over Lake Erie for several miles, the tornado then struck the town of Lorain just west of Cleveland, where greater than 500 houses were destroyed and 1,000 others were damaged in addition to many businesses in the downtown area.

[2][3][4] There were uncertainties as to whether or not the Sandusky-Lorain tornado was a single tornado event due to the 25-mile path of the storm across Lake Erie between Sandusky and Lorain; however, many eyewitnesses reported a single storm crossing the lake before coming onshore again in Lorain.

[4] The New York Times published the following article on June 29, 1924: "CLEVELAND, June 28 (Associated Press) - Three hundred are dead and at least 1,500 are injured in Lorain alone as a result of a tornado today, according to reports reaching Colonel D. H. Pond, Director of Red Cross civilian relief, here early tonight.

Colonel Pond announced that he had arranged for tents for 1,000 persons to be shipped directly to Lorain from Camp Perry.

Eighty dead have been taken from the State Theatre (sic) in Lorain, the chief of police of Elyria reported at 9:30 to-night.

The storm carried telegraph and telephone wires down with it, isolating Sandusky, Lorain and other points in the northern part of the State, making confirmation of reports impossible.

Reports received over crippled railroad wires from Sandusky late tonight state that between fifty and seventy-five persons were killed or drowned there today when the tornado struck that city.

Confirmation of the collapse of the theatre and washout of the Black River bridge at Lorain was brought to Cleveland by A. Downer, conductor on the Lake Shore Electric Railway, the first eyewitness of the disaster to reach this city.

Practically every house on Broadway, the main street of the city east and west, was blown down, Downer reported, and automobiles were picked up and overturned on the sidewalks.

Reports here that small passenger steamers plying between Sandusky and Lake Erie Island resorts have been lost, but could not be confirmed late tonight.

One of the first eyewitness stories of the cyclone to reach Cleveland was brought back by L.F. Forster of Bay Village.

He was in Lorain within a few minutes after the cyclone struk and he walked over several blocks of the devastated area, saw unroofed buildings, fallen trees, and telephone poles, heard screams of some of the injured and afterward saw refugees fleeing the city.

They said they had seen houses toppling over, roofs flying through the air, and trees and telephone poles mowed down as a by a huge scythe.

I had an uncanny feeling as I looked at houses without roofs or without walls, as I picked my way through the wreckage in the streets.

Driving back to Bay Village, we overtook a number of refugees who came pouring out of the city a few minutes after the storm struck.

Nickel Plate trainmen reported that all the Government houses north of the railroad tracks in South Lorain had been blown down.

About fifty members of the 112th Engineers Corps were rushed to Lorain in taxicabs upon receipt of Governor Donahey's orders.

A relief train was sent to the scene by the Nickel Plate Railroad, while all police emergency cars and other available automobiles left here with nurses and physicians.

The Elyria fire department, which succeeded in reaching Lorain, sent out a frantic appeal for help, reporting that several hundreds were injured when the theatre collapsed.