When severe weather hits, it does more than just ruin your gardens.

It assaults your senses.

For residents of Pulaski County, Wednesday’s storms provided a sensory overload.

“It just got black almost instantly,” recalled Tim Wuethrich, local Fire Chief helping clean up the damage.

Like most severe weather, you could see this system coming.

"It got blacker than the ace of spades,” said Fred Litke, who works in Francesville. “Then all at once, it was over with."

Becky Tiede was driving home when she realized the storm might be closer than she thought. “I looked at the trees and I told my husband, I said, 'We are in a tornado.'”

Then, there’s the noise. The wind, rain and sirens cause quite a ruckus.

"It was just like a real strong wind that we heard and that,” Tiede said. “But I've heard others say it was like a roaring sound."

“We went inside, looked out the window and the doors to the south were starting to shake,” Fred Litke said, recounting the scene from inside a local church for which he is a janitor. “Minister and I grabbed a hold of the doors. It stopped just like that and we looked out and said, 'Oh my grace the building across the street's gone.'”

There’s plenty to feel during a major storm. The rain stings. The heart pounds. The house shakes.

“All of the sudden we feel something and it was like the roof was going off of the building,” said resident Bonnie Koebcke, “so we took off and went to the restroom where we're supposed to take cover.

“It was kinda scary.”

Then there is cleanup, which leaves a bad taste in everyone's mouth. Pounds of debris equate to long hours for volunteers and cleanup crews.

So although you can't exactly smell a crazy storm, it sure stinks.

For Koebcke, it could have been much worse.

“We were all safe and that was the main thing.”