SANDUSKY, Ohio–  "I would say we had 100 years of history lost in this city lost in about 5 seconds."

Sandusky Mayor Dick Brady says it's a shame the high winds and thunderstorms severely damaged the historic state theater.

This video was taken Wednesday night and showed the powerful storm just ripping the wall off the Sandusky State Theater.

"Obviously either a tornado touched down literally on top of the building where we had some type of wind shear, shear burst that took the side of the building off and almost collapsed the entire interior of the structure. There is so much time, and effort has gone into the gem of a city literally in the heart of our city, we've lost a cornerstone of our city to this," says Mayor Brady.

Luckily no one inside when the roof came crashing down. The theater has been closed due to the covid 19 pandemic.

"This is one of the times you say maybe COVID probably prevented people from occupying the building... Probably saved a lot of lives during the time that this happened, so we are very fortunate that we didn't have anybody in this structure, and hopefully, we can rebuild," says Cheif Rick Wilcox of the Sandusky Fire Department.

Residents came by to look at the destruction. To see the historic state theater that has been in Sandusky since 1928. People were happy to know that the theater's famous chandelier survived the storm.

 "Wonderful news, I was surprised by what I saw of some of the damage earlier online, I thought maybe everything in there came down, so to hear that the chandelier is still up there," says Sandusky resident Bob Toney.

City officials say the state theater will be repaired and will be back in business at some point in the future.